An Expansive Love
by nerdforlife
Summary: Expanding their family might not be the easiest thing, but maybe it's the best thing. (A sequel to Something Unpredictable.)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This story is a sequel to Something Unpredictable. It can probably stand alone, but it'll make even more sense if you've read that. It is a work in progress with two to three more chapters to go. I've been posting it on the AO3 under my username there, Tonks42, but I decided to add it here as well. The last few chapters will update once a week on Monday evenings.**

"The oranges for Jules' soccer game tomorrow are cut and in the fridge," Kurt said as he sank down beside his husband on the couch. "You just have to remember to grab them before you leave for the game."

"Oranges in the fridge, right. I'm sorry you've got a Saturday shoot tomorrow and won't be able to watch Julian's game," Blaine said, looking up from his laptop to smile over at Kurt.

"Oh, it'll be fine." Kurt glanced around quickly to make sure Julian hadn't snuck down from his bedroom. "To be honest, I won't be devastated to miss a game or two. How in the world did we become suburban soccer dads?"

"Luck." Blaine scooted in closer to lean against Kurt's shoulder. "Luck and a fifth grader that somehow discovered sports. How did _our_ child end up even knowing soccer exists?"

"I would suspect we can blame that on his Uncle Finn," Kurt said, "but at least it's soccer he's into. It could be worse. Finn could have gotten him involved in football. I hate the idea of him out on the field in pads hitting other people."

"Because soccer is never rough…" Blaine laughed. "At least soccer season is giving us a short break from baseball."

"Baseball games usually come with bleachers, though. I can bring the latest issue of Vogue for all those times Jules isn't the one up to the plate." Kurt snuggled in closer to Blaine, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. He peered down closer at the open laptop after he caught the headline on the website. "Blaine? Why are you looking at a website on adoption?"

Blaine shut the laptop before Kurt could see anymore, sliding it onto the empty couch seat beside him. "It was just a crazy idea."

"You want to adopt? Again?" Kurt's eyebrows raised at the thought. "Things are good with the three of us, aren't they?"

"Wouldn't it be nice for Julian to have a sibling?" Blaine countered, crossing his arms tight around him. "I told you it was a crazy idea. It's just- Have I told you about Mateo?"

"The quiet one, right? As in, 'the rest of the class won't shut up, but why won't Mateo speak?'" Kurt mimicked Blaine's frustrated tone. "What does he have to do with your crazy ideas?"

"He's in foster care. He got assigned a new CASA, and I met with-."

"Wait, CASA? Like a new foster home?" Kurt interrupted, confused.

"No, like, um, I'm actually not sure what it stands for. It's an acronym. C A S A. It's a volunteer who works with a kid in foster care, kind of like a cross between a mentor and a second set of eyes to make sure the placement and services are right," Blaine explained. "It's not the first time I've met with one over the years."

"Right. Okay, continue. How does this influence your crazy idea?" Kurt shifted position on the couch, pulling away from Blaine far enough that he could turn and face him.

"I was talking to him, the CASA, about Mateo. About how he's really very smart, and his writing is hilarious. We were talking about how it might be good for Mateo to join a club or a sports team, something to help him come out of his shell a little bit." Blaine gave Kurt a quick glance, his husband's nod showing Blaine he was still listening. "And the CASA let slip that they're looking for an adoptive home for Mateo and his little sister."

"And you're attached to the kid," Kurt concluded. "So your crazy idea is that we bring not one but two more kids into our lives? We can barely keep up with jobs and sports teams and everything as it is."

"Well, Julian's been asking for either a dog or a little brother for years." Blaine cracked a nervous smile. "And you've always vetoed the idea of a dog on the grounds of shedding so…"

Kurt waggled a finger. "Don't tell me you've brought this up with Jules."

Blaine shook his head quickly. "I didn't even mean to bring it up with you. Not yet, at least. I know it's a crazy thought. I've admitted as much, but they're great kids. You've heard me talk about Mateo, and his little sister Camila is adorable. She's in McGregor's Kindergarten class, and she's the polar opposite of her brother. Whenever I see her, she has some kind of vitally important story to tell me."

Kurt fell quiet for a long moment, considering it. "I honestly don't know what to say about this, Blaine. It's a lot all at once."

"It is. I really wasn't planning to tell you, not like this." Blaine dropped his head to his chest, staring down at his lap. "I thought I'd do some research. Pray about it. Figure out exactly how I feel about this before I even broached the subject."

"Then maybe that's a plan we should both take," Kurt decided. "How about we make an agreement? We won't speak about this again until next Friday night. We'll give it a week to simmer, and then, and only then, we'll talk about it."

Blaine nodded in agreement. "A week. We'll talk about this again next week, once Julian's asleep."

The week flew by. It was a busy week at work, but then lately they'd all been. Kurt's current show, _Plymouth High_ , had promoted him to be the head of the wardrobe department at the beginning of the season, and they still had one more episode to film before they wrapped up for the year. It was a family show about teenage superheroes, something Kurt never would have thought he'd be working on, but the cast and crew were great.

The idea of adopting again was always somewhere in the back of his mind, poking through in quiet moments at the sewing machine, long car rides back and forth between the studio and his house, and while he waited for Julian to finish the math homework he was supposed to be helping with.

The workday Friday was there and gone again in a flurry of shopping, fittings, and alterations. It was only as he stood in the parking lot, staring at his silver Honda, that he realized how little time he had left to come to a conclusion, or at least to decide what he was going to say to Blaine about it.

He really needed to talk to someone. Sometimes just the action of talking things out helped. Kurt ran through a list of possibilities in his head. Tina? Too personal. What if they decided not to? He wasn't sure he wanted her to have that knowledge, and she'd be sure to tell Mike. Rachel? Same thing, minus the Mike.. Finn? His brother might be a good choice, but what if Finn got his hopes up about more kids in the family for his to play with. His father? The same problem with getting his hopes up existed, but his dad always seemed to offer the best advice.

Kurt checked the time. Five. That would make it eight in Ohio. That was the perfect time for a call home. Decision made. He slipped his Bluetooth earpiece into place, grabbing his phone to start the call before he backed out of the lot.

"Kurt?" Thank goodness his father had answered only a few rings in.

"Hi, Dad," Kurt pulled out of the studio onto a main street, heading for the freeway and the slow crawl home. "How are you?"

"Good, good. Put in a couple hours helping out at the shop today so that I wouldn't drive Carole too crazy."

Kurt laughed. Since his father's semi-retirement a few years before, that had developed into a problem no one really wanted to mention too often. Burt was too used to having work to do to sit quietly at home. "I'm sure she appreciated it, even if she won't say so."

A horn blasted outside the window, and Kurt turned to see someone in the next lane flipping off an aggressive driver. It must have transferred through the phone line because Burt's next question was, "Are you driving, Kurt?"

"I am. I'm on my way home. I'm handsfree, though, and you know that the likelihood I'll get to go over twenty miles per hour on the freeway is low," Kurt pointed out as he merged onto the onramp. "I'm being safe."

"Good. I'd hate to be the reason you got into an accident," Burt said gruffly. "Was there something you need, or were you just calling to check in?"

"Both." Kurt fell silent for a moment, organizing his thoughts. "I just need some advice, or maybe just a chance to think out loud."

"What's going on?" Burt asked.

"Last week, Blaine brought up the possibility of adopting again, and I'm not sure about it," Kurt admitted. "I mean, I love Jules so much, and I love being his dad."

"But what if you mess that up?" Burt honed in right on Kurt's biggest fear.

"Yeah. Things are going really well right now. What if that changes? What if we screw up our family dynamic?" Kurt asked, voice shaking.

"Do you remember when Carole and Finn were going to move in the first time?" Burt asked.

"I do," Kurt said slowly, unsure of what seemed like a quick change of subject. "How could I forget?"

"There were so many times in there that I was sure I'd messed things up for us. But long run, did it work out that way?"

"No." Kurt rubbed at his eyes, picking up his father's point. "In the long run, I gained a brother and a stepmother. Our family got stronger."

"So maybe this will be hard. It'll certainly change your family. It's up to you and Blaine to decide if it's a risk worth taking. I can't make this decision for you. It's something only you and Blaine can decide, but don't let yourself get caught up in the fear and let it keep you from weighing all your options. There is a risk it'll end badly, but it could also extend your family into something bigger and better."

Kurt nodded slowly as he stared at the rear bumper of the car moving slowly in front of him. "There are two specific children, from Blaine's school, that started this."

"So Blaine knows them?" Burt asked. "How does he think they'd fit in?"

"I could ask him that. We're going to sit down and talk about the whole thing tonight." Kurt let out a small sigh. "I just don't know. You know what my hours can be like. I don't always have a nine to five job. What if I end up having to put too much stress on Blaine with this?"

"Ask Blaine," Burt suggested. "Put that on your list of things to talk about. I'm glad you have time set aside already to talk about this. Because a frank, honest discussion seems like exactly what the two of you need."

"Jules wants a little brother almost as much as he wants a dog," Kurt offered. "But he doesn't have a real concept of what that would be like."

"And nothing you could say would really prepare him for it. Will you have time before you talk to make a list? Let's figure out what you and Blaine need to discuss. You've still got time in your drive?"

Kurt stared at the sea of traffic in front of him, probably his least favorite thing about living in LA. "I've got plenty of time."

"Alright, Jules is down for the count," Kurt said on his way down the stairs. "Or at least totally settled in his bed with the latest book from that author he likes."

"Rick Riordan is a master." Blaine grabbed his laptop, opening it to type in his password. "Kitchen table?"

Their kitchen table was a round four seater stuck in a sunny little nook off the kitchen. They didn't even have enough room at the table to add two more children, Kurt thought as he got seated. He pulled the paper he'd written the questions his father had helped him create out of his pocket, smoothing it out on the glossy wood surface.

"You have things to talk about," Blaine noticed as he pulled up his own file on his laptop. "I did some research this week, to find out how this adoption would be different from Julian's, since his first was kinship and then a second parent adoption."

Kurt said, "I talked to Dad about it. Just for general disclosure." Blaine nodded without surprise. "I guess my first question for you is why? What's your reason for this? Is it just about these two kids?"

"Partly. Mateo especially has a special place in my heart," Blaine admitted. "But I've been thinking about this for awhile, about maybe adopting again. It's just never felt like the right time to bring it up. I love kids, you know that, and I'd love to give Julian a sibling or two to grow up with."

"So it's not just about Mateo?" Kurt prodded.

"It's not just about Mateo or Camila. I may not have expected Julian's entrance in my life almost eleven years ago, but it's been one of the absolute best things to happen to me. I love being his dad, even when he's rolling his eyes or lying about his room being cleaned. I want more kids, Kurt." He met Kurt's eyes, expression open and vulnerable. "It might not be the perfect timing now, but I guess I'm tired of waiting for it to be the right time to bring it up. I feel like maybe Mateo was placed in my class for a reason, so that we'd be in the right place to step in and raise these kids."

Kurt listened quietly, letting Blaine pour out his thoughts until he went quiet. He reached over to cover Blaine's hand with his own. "I didn't realize you felt that way."

Blaine cracked a tight smile. "I've been afraid to tell you and have you not feel the same way. I know that you weren't sure you even wanted kids in the first place. I didn't want to push, and somehow, it felt easier to keep it to myself than risk resenting you for saying no."

Kurt squinted, trying to wrap his head around that logic. "But now there's these two kids, making the risk worth it?"

"Exactly." Blaine grabbed his laptop, pulling it closer to open a file of pictures. "I don't know if I have a picture of Camila on here, but I know Mateo should be in the ones from our field trip." He pulled open a file of pictures from the Science Center of California, scanning through them until he found the one he wanted. "Mateo's the one on the left."

Kurt leaned over to get a better look at the screen. It showed two boys leaning over an exhibit that was sending a blast of air toward them. Their hair was a mess, and both of them were laughing their heads off. Kurt gave the boy on the left a longer look. He was short, at least in comparison to his classmate, a dark haired Hispanic boy with a wide smile and dimples. "He's cute," Kurt offered, staring harder at the picture. How were you supposed to look at a still image and imagine a child being your son?

"He is." Blaine pulled his computer back and skimmed back through his files. "Oh! I took a class picture for McGregor on Halloween." He pulled open the image, a group photo of five year olds in various Halloween costumes. "Camila is the Belle in the front row."

Blaine had been right about her being adorable. Camila wasn't any taller in proportion to her peers than Mateo had been with long, wavy black hair.. When Blaine zoomed in on the photo, Kurt could see her gorgeous brown eyes and the sassy smile she was giving the camera. "She's equally adorable. Is that supposed to make up my mind? I work in show business. I see cute kids all the time," Kurt pointed out.

"It was supposed to make them seem like real people. Little people, true, but not theoretical ones. These two kids who need a home." Blaine switched back to his Word file, pushing the laptop away. "Alright, what other questions did you have?"

Kurt glanced back down at his sheet. Half of them no longer seemed to matter, and he skipped down to the fourth one. "How would we do this logistically? Obviously they'd go to school with you, but what about here? We only have three bedrooms. And what about sports practices or dance classes? You know that my schedule isn't predictable enough to always be able to help."

"We'd just have to schedule extracurriculars carefully," Blaine said with a shrug. "You know how I feel about over scheduling kids anyway, so it's not like we'll have seven events each night." He glanced toward the stairs to the second floor of their rather average sized home. "We use our kitchen table more than our office, so disassembling that wouldn't be the biggest deal in the world. Mateo and Julian would probably have to share, though."

"We could probably bribe Julian into that with the promise of bunk beds," Kurt said, considering the matter more seriously than he'd really expected to. Seeing just how much Blaine cared about this had added a new dimension to the discussion.

"Bunk beds and a little brother. I wonder how he'd feel about getting a little sister in the process, too?" Blaine pondered.

"And a little brother and sister close enough in age to be interesting. If we used a surrogate or adopted a newborn, there'd be a huge age difference there." Kurt glanced down at his paper. "What would the process for this be? Would we need to do a new home study?"

Blaine tugged his laptop back closer, scrolling down his file. "I spent some time this week researching that. We would. It's been too long since we did your adoption of Julian for that one to work. We'd also need to take foster parenting classes. It sounds like it would be more involved than adopting Julian was. I think, basically it would be classes and a homestudy at the same time. Then we'd be approved for placement of kids, hopefully those two. We'd have to have custody for at least six months before the adoption was final, just like I had to with Julian."

Kurt nodded, reading through the information Blaine had copied from the internet. "Six weeks of classes? What would we do with Jules?"

"You know Miriam would love to have him come over and occupy Mason," Blaine pointed out.

Kurt laughed at the thought. Miriam and Kelly's four year old son, Mason, was a complete bundle of energy. Whenever the two families were over, Miriam would always try to convince Julian to take Mason into the back yard and chase him around for awhile. Anything to wear him out.

"She would." Kurt glanced down at his list of questions. Somehow, faced with Blaine so obviously wanting to add to their family and the images in his head of two kids in need of a new home, the rest of what he'd written down just didn't seem to matter. "I don't know if I can say yes yet, but I think I'm at a maybe," he admitted. "I need a little more time, but do we know for sure this could even happen?"

"I can get the number of their social worker and call her to discuss the possibility," Blaine offered. "I'll let her know that we're considering it, but not totally sure yet."

Kurt nodded, reaching out to grab Blaine's hand in his. "Maybe is okay, right? You're not angry at me for not being as ready to jump in feet first as you are?"

Blaine shook his head, scooting his chair over to lean against his husband. "I'm not mad. You're giving it serious thought. One way or the other, how could I be mad about that? Disappointed maybe, if you don't end up being on board with this, but not angry."


	2. Chapter 2

Blaine bit down nervously on the end of his pen. It was a bad habit that he'd scold his kids for, but they were off in P.E. It was also probably the source of far too many germs. Blaine tossed it down onto his desk, sending off a quick prayer instead that the call would go well, that he'd get the answers that he wanted, and that Kurt would come the rest of the way around. He could see it starting to happen. Blaine knew his husband too well after almost ten years of marriage than to rush him.

With one more slow deep breath, Blaine glanced down at the number he'd scribbled on a post-it. He dialed it into his phone and waited, adding the extension when asked.

"This is Megan Chan. How can I help you?"

Blaine paced across his empty classroom, double checking to make sure the door was all the way shut. "Hi. I'm not sure if you're the right person for me to talk to about this, but I thought that you might at least be able to connect me to the right one." Blaine stopped for another deep breath to calm his nerves. So much felt like it was riding on this phone call and here he was babbling. "My name is Blaine Anderson. I'm Mateo Sanchez's teacher."

"Is he having some kind of problem at school?" Megan said with clear concern.

"No, it's nothing like that. I just- I heard that you might be looking for an adoptive placement for Mateo and Camila. My husband and I have one son, but we've been thinking about expanding our family." Or at least Blaine had been thinking about it. Close enough.

"Ah," Megan said as she seemed to pick up on his intentions. "And you wanted to ask about the possibility of adopting the Sanchez siblings?"

"Yes," Blaine admitted. "I think that my family might be a really good fit for them. I know there would be a lot of steps we'd need to go through first, but…" He let his voice trail off, totally unsure of how to finish that sentence without sounding like an idiot.

"You would need to complete foster care training and have a current home study before an official match could be made." She hesitated for a moment, and Blaine could hear the faint sound of the keys clicking on her keyboard. "We don't currently have any potential families for the kids. We had one, but they backed out after their second meeting with the kids."

"Mateo didn't speak to them?" Blaine guessed.

Megan laughed. "Exactly. You definitely know him."

"It took until October before I'd heard a complete sentence from him," Blaine admitted. "But last week he came up to tell me that one of his tablemates had said something rude. I'm taking that as progress."

"Definitely," Megan agreed simply. "If you and your husband are serious about this, we can set up a time to meet, to make arrangements for your classes and home study. At that point, if I think you might be a good match for the kids, I can hold off on actively seeking another family for a couple of months to let you get your paperwork together."

"That sounds great." Blaine hesitated for a moment before adding, "Can I get back to you on scheduling a time until after I talk to my husband? I'm a teacher, so my schedule is pretty straightforward. Kurt works behind the scenes for a TV show, though, so I'll have to check and see when he's free."

"That sounds great. You obviously have my number, so I'll look forward to hearing from you soon."

"I hope you have a great day," Blaine closed with before he clicked the disconnect call button on his cell. He sank down into one of blue, plastic chairs that his classroom had so many of. That had gone well, hadn't it? Now all he had to do was convince Kurt to actually be on board.

Sundays were one of Blaine's favorite days of the week. Sunday mornings were Kurt's morning to sleep in, while Blaine would rouse Julian an hour later than normal, just in time to get the kid showered, fed, and dressed before church.

Sometimes, like today, they'd have time to stop for bagels on the way. Those made for the best Sundays.

"And when we get into sixth grade we get to choose electives." Julian gestured with a half eaten bagel piece as he talked.

"Right. Have you been thinking about what you want to take?" Blaine asked, letting himself pretend like this was new information. He'd been teaching in Julian's current school for almost six years now, ever since the boy had been a Kindergartener. He might teach third grade, but he'd had enough exposure to the fifth grade team to know most of how the transition to middle school worked.

"I'm not sure if I wanted to do choir or art," Julian admitted. "You and Papa won't be mad at me if I don't choose choir will you?"

Blaine shook his head quickly. "Of course not. Show choir might have something we both loved in school, but it's okay if it's not your thing. We want you to find what makes you happy. Uncle Mike wasn't mad when you decided you weren't a fan of dance classes, was he?"

Julian shook his head with a look of relief. "Maybe I'll put art down as my first choice and choir as my second."

Blaine leaned across the table to ruffle the boy's hair, getting a long suffering groan out of Julian. "That sounds like a good plan."

"And they have a robotics club after school. Would I be able to stay late for that?" Julian asked hopefully.

"Of course," Blaine promised. No matter what changes might or might not happen in their family over the next few months, he was sure he'd find a way to keep that one. The fact that these one on one father/son bonding mornings might be limited made him resolve the enjoy the opportunities even more. He clicked his phone to check the time and grabbed his coffee cup to finish it off. "We've got to be getting to church. Finish up."

"Morning, Blaine." Miriam leaned across the row of chairs to wrap him in a quick hug.

"Good morning! How's your week been?" He asked giving a quick wave to Kelly sitting several chairs down, with their array of children between them.

Ella and Julian had fallen into fast conversation, as usual, and seven year old Liam was leaning in to listen, always ready to try to tag along with the older kids.

"Busy," Miriam said simply with a laugh. "Busy, but good, as usual."

A tug on his pant leg made Blaine look down to see Mason grinning at him. As soon as he had Blaine's attention, the preschooler crawled up onto his lap. "Hi, Uncle Blaine! I'll sit with you, okay?"

Blaine gave him a tight squeeze, knowing that boy wouldn't stay put very long, even if he wouldn't have had Sunday School to go to during part of the service. "Of course you can sit with me." Blaine jostled him back and forth playfully, getting out a laugh out of Mason.

"When are you and Kurt going to add to your family?" Miriam teased with a grin between Blaine and her youngest son.

"As soon as I can get Kurt to agree to it," Blaine replied, getting a laugh out of her. Of course she had no idea how serious he was about that. When the chance in the service came to go up to light a candle and whisper a prayer, Blaine knew exactly what he was praying for today.

"Good morning everyone!" The pastor greeted, and Blaine turned his attention forward, Mason still snuggled in his arms, still for once in his short life.

As Blaine looked over the diverse congregation, he remembered exactly why it was worth the longer drive since they'd moved to the suburbs to continue to bring Julian here every Sunday. This place and these people were a second home, one he knew would support his family expanding just as much as they'd supported him almost 11 years ago when he'd suddenly taken custody of Julian.

Kurt sat for a moment on the edge of the loveseat in the loft space upstairs that had been taken over by toys and their second television. "Minecraft today, huh?"

"I'm in the middle of building an underwater castle," Julian said, manipulating the game controller with ease.

Kurt reached out to give him a quick squeeze. "You'll have to give me a tour when it's finished, Jules. I'm going to head downstairs and bother your father."

Julian just made a hm noise in agreement, and Kurt made his way down the stairs and through the living room to find Blaine right where Kurt had expected him to be. Sunday afternoons had their own routine. Julian would take advantage of all the screen time they'd allow him. Blaine would cover the kitchen table with his laptop and teacher manuals, working on writing lesson plans. And usually, Kurt would spend some alone time in the kitchen, baking or prepping whatever he could to make their meals run smoothly for the week.

Today though, he pulled out the chair next to Blaine's peering over at the math text his husband had open. "Fractions. This is going to be a fun week in math," he offered sarcastically.

Blaine just gave him a genuine smile in return. "In my classroom, they're all fun weeks in math."

"Sure, sure," Kurt teased before he sobered up to ask, "do you have time to talk?"

"A distraction from writing lesson plans? I always have time for that." Blaine slid the book out of the way across the table. "What's up?"

Kurt took a deep breath, considering the right phrasing for a moment before deciding to just jump right in. "I'm in."

"You're into what?" Blaine asked in confusion, before it hit him, a grin spreading across his face. "You're in. You're sure?"

"I'm sure. I love being a dad. It'd be really good for Julian to have siblings." Kurt paused in listing his reasons to give Blaine a sly smile. "And think of all the adorable clothes out there for little girls."

Blaine laughed. "You were really just won over the by the idea of getting to coordinate outfits for all five of us for special occasions, weren't you?"

Kurt leaned over to press a kiss to Blaine's cheek. "You know me so well. What's our next step?"

"We'll need to schedule a meeting with the social worker. Then there will be classes to take and a homestudy to complete." Blaine's grin didn't diminish at all as he listed off the steps. "At some point we'll have to find a good way to tell Julian."

"After the meeting with the social worker," Kurt decided. "Then we'll sit Jules down together and talk to him about it."

"It's nice to meet both of you," Megan said, shaking hands as she led them back toward her office. "Thank you for coming in to meet with me."

"Thank you for staying late enough for me to come after work," Blaine said with a polite smile, rather sure that a 4:30 appointment was probably later than her normal. He gave Megan a quick look over. She was younger than he'd expected, no older than her mid-twenties, but dressed professionally in a plain black sweater and a houndstooth skirt. Megan was Asian, with shoulder length black hair and a smile that was slowly helping to put him at ease.

"I was happy to find a time both of you were able to come in." She opened a door and waved them in.

"My second in command will be happy to get the chance to take over for a while," Kurt joked as he took a seat in one of the chairs across from the desk.

"Seth has been just waiting for that chance, hasn't he?" Blaine said with a laugh.

Megan steered the conversation back on topic as she took a seat at her desk. "You have a son together already, right?"

"We do," Kurt said rubbing his legs over the fabric of his dress pants. "Julian is a fifth grader at Blaine's school. It's hard to believe we'll have a middle schooler already next year."

"Was he adopted as well?" Megan asked, grabbing a notepad to scratch out a note. "Fifth grade. That'd be good spacing with Mateo and Camila."

Blaine nodded with a quick smile. "They're the perfect age to fit into our family." He reached out to grab Kurt's hand, to comfort his husband as much as to soothe his own nerves. "I adopted Julian as an infant, and then Kurt adopted him a few years later after we were married. He was originally placed with me by Social Services, but it was a kinship placement. His biological father is my older brother."

"We'd just met at the time," Kurt said, jumping in to continue the story. "In fact, Blaine took custody of Jules between our first and second date."

"So I don't need to tell you want to expect from a homestudy, then," Megan said with a smile. "Have you completed foster care training classes in the past?"

"We've done two of them, and I expect not a whole lot has changed in the last six or seven years." Blaine shot Kurt a quick look before he shook his head. "We haven't done the classes before though. I took a couple of parenting classes when Julian was placed with me, but I didn't have to do the whole set because he's biologically my nephew. And Kurt's adoption was a second parent one."

Megan nodded and reached over to grab a piece of paper from her desk. "Let's talk a little bit about the process and timelines. I've got a list here of options for scheduling your classes." She grabbed a pen off her desk to start two of the options. "We have a Saturday set starting up this weekend, and a set on Wednesday nights starting in two weeks."

Blaine gave Kurt a quick glance. "We'll have to discuss it, and look at Kurt's schedule, but Wednesdays will probably work better. Saturdays Julian usually has soccer."

"Usually we ask parents to finish the classes before we start the home study, but in your case, I'll push to expedite things and do them simultaneously. That will cut down the timeframe to get Mateo and Camila in a permanent home, if we all decide after the homestudy is complete that you two are the best placement for them," Megan offered. "Let me get you more information about how that decision will be made."

Julian looked between his two fathers worriedly. It was rarely a good thing when they asked him to sit down and talk like this. He thought back over his last week, trying to figure out what he'd done. His grades weren't amazing, but he hadn't brought home any Ds or Fs. He'd been trying to be better about not talking in class since his teacher had moved him away from Noah.

Did that mean something bad had happened? Like the time Grandpa Burt had been in the hospital and Papa had flown out to Ohio by himself to be with him?

"Relax, Jules." Kurt must have noticed how much he was freaking out. "You're not in trouble. Your Dad and I just had something we wanted to talk to you about."

Blaine gave him a happy smile that reassured Julian even more that nothing horrible had happened. "How would you feel about expanding our family?"

Julian's eyes widened with surprise. "We're finally getting a dog?"

"We're not getting a dog," Kurt said with a roll of his eyes. "We've had this talk. Dogs shed."

"I've been doing some research. There are breeds that don't shed much," Julian pointed out.

"Not much is not the same thing as none," Kurt replied far too quickly to have even given it real thought.

Blaine lifted his hands up to stop the discussion. "I didn't mean a dog. Or a cat. I meant a little brother or sister. Or maybe both."

"Really?" Julian couldn't stop the grin from appearing on his face. "I'd get to be a big brother?" But then a thought occurred to him. "Wait. Would they be babies with stinky diapers I'd have to change?"

Kurt laughed. "No. They'd probably be in elementary school, just a couple years younger than you."

Julian considered for a moment before he nodded. "That would be pretty cool. I think I'd be a good big brother, even if it means sharing my room or my video games."

Dad reached over to ruffle his hair, and Julian slapped his hands onto the top of his head, making a show of smoothing it back down. "Adopting you worked out so well we've decided we want to do it again. I think you'll be a great big brother."


	3. Chapter 3

"Your papa and I had our first date here," Blaine mentioned cheerfully as he navigated the crowded maze that was their closest Ikea.

Julian just rolled his eyes in response. "I know. You tell me the whole story every time we're here. And then you made googly eyes at each other over a plate of Swedish meatballs." Julian made a gagging noise.

"See if you get any on the way out, then," Blaine said with a teasing sniff of disdain. "Oh, here's the kids section." He stopped next to a small, white four poster bed with a pink canopy. "So cute, but probably not what we really need, right?"

Julian narrowed his eyes as he stared at it, one of those looks that Blaine could have sworn had been plucked right off of Kurt's face, biology be damned. "I thought we were putting my bed into the office. Then I was getting bunk beds? I am getting bunk beds right?"

"Right," Blaine pulled his gaze away, avoiding a family with a stroller to stop beside two different bunk bed sets. "You'd want something more like this right?" He patted a simple dark wood set. "It's much classier than that metal one."

Julian looked between the two carefully. "The metal one is cool. It's silver. Like space age. But this would be fine, too. It looks kind of like my bed now doubled."

"Which means Papa will probably approve." Blaine took a step back to snap a picture on his phone, texting it to Kurt.

"Can we get a dresser that matches? My blue one could go into the new bedroom or to my new brother," Julian turned pleading eyes towards Blaine.

Blaine froze. That dresser was one of the last pieces they still had from the nursery that Kurt had put together when Julian was still a baby. How could he not want it anymore? "You don't like your dresser?"

Julian shrugged, pushing his hands down into his pockets. "It's kind of little kid-ish. I'm going to be in middle school soon, you know."

"I know. And if I forget for even two seconds, you remind me," Blaine forced a teasing smile with that quip. "Let's take a look at some options, and I'll talk to Papa about it."

"Julian is growing up too fast," Blaine complained as he slid into bed beside Kurt that night.

Kurt laughed, looking up from the book on attachment he was reading, homework from their foster care classes. "Isn't that one of the reasons we're adding two younger models?"

Blaine snuggled up against his husband, tucking his cold feet against Kurt's calf. "I suppose."

"Hey!" Kurt yanked his leg away. "That's cold." He rolled onto his side, giving Blaine a long, searching look. "What has Jules done now?"

"He wants a new dresser with his new set of bunk beds," Blaine grumped.

Kurt hmmed as he thought about it. "That makes sense. He probably is outgrowing that bright blue one. We could move it into Camila's room. Or use it for Mateo."

"That's exactly what he said." Blaine wrinkled his nose. "But I think that might be the last piece of furniture left."

"Left from what?" Kurt asked, reaching for Blaine's hand to slot their fingers together.

"From his nursery," Blaine answered. "The one you decorated for me."

"Back when we were pretending we weren't dating," Kurt mused. "That thing has held up well over the years."

"And now he's so old he doesn't appreciate it anymore."

Kurt leaned in to give Blaine a quick kiss. "I love how sentimental you are."

"I need to let this go, don't I?" Blaine said with a quiet sigh.

"Or at least reframe your thoughts. Instead of thinking about how Jules doesn't want it anymore, maybe think of it as something that gets to be passed down to Camila." Kurt gave his head a quick shake. "He's growing up, simple as that. I confirmed a laser tag party for his eleventh birthday today. He's not the little boy with a nursery anymore."

"I know. Maybe I just hate letting go of that," Blaine admitted before he gave Kurt a soft smile. "He's turning into a pretty awesome preteen though, isn't he?"

There was one part of the homestudy that was easier with a fifth grader than a preschooler, Blaine hoped. At least they didn't have to worry quite so much about what Julian would tell the social worker when she sat him down to talk.

"Eh, my grades are okay. I mean, I get mostly Bs, but Dad and Papa say that's alright as long as I'm working hard in school. I'm not sure what I want to be when I get older. I'm thinking maybe a teacher like Dad. Or maybe a pastor."

Blaine raised his eyebrows at Kurt across the kitchen table where they'd sat down to be out of Julian's sight but able to hear. Pastor. That was a new one.

"You go to church with your fathers, right?" They could hear Megan ask.

"Dad and I go almost every Sunday. It's pretty cool. We get to sing songs, and I go to Sunday School where we talk about God and loving people and stuff. Papa only comes with us on holidays like Christmas, because he likes those songs. He doesn't believe in God." Blaine could almost hear Julian's unimpressed shrug.

He was grateful to hear Megan switch topics instead of pressing Julian on that point. "How do you feel about adding new siblings to your family?"

"As long as I get to be the _big_ brother, I'm cool with it. When we go to Aunt Miriam's house, I've got little sort-of cousins. Sometimes they get on my nerves, but mostly it's fun to play with them. The rest of my cousins are in Ohio, so I don't get to see them as much." Julian paused for a moment before he got back on track. "I think it'd be nice to have more kids around here. Dad and Papa are great, but they don't usually want to play Minecraft. Plus we could play in the backyard. Sometimes Dad comes to play catch, but sometimes he's busy with papers to grade and stuff, you know?"

Megan must have considered that a complete enough answer, because she went on to her next question. "What happens if you get in trouble?"

"Well, first Papa will give me this _look._ " Blaine tried to control his laughter as Kurt's eyebrows shot up. He imagined Julian was probably doing a pretty good impression of it. "That's how I know I'm really in trouble. Then I'll get grounded or something. Like I'll have to do extra chores instead of going to a friend's, or they won't let me play Minecraft. Stuff like that."

"How about you show me around?" Megan asked, and they could hear Julian practically jump up, if the thud on the floor was any indication.

"Sure! I'll show you my bedroom. I got a bunk bed, because we only have three bedrooms, so I'll have to share if I have a little brother. It's cool though, because I get to sleep on the top."

As footsteps trudged up the floor, Blaine couldn't hold back his laughter anymore. "You do have quite the look."

Kurt wrinkled his nose over. "You're the teacher. Isn't yours supposed to be worse?"

"So, I got Kurt to come around and say yes," Blaine said as he sank down onto the park bench beside Miriam, a cup of coffee in his hand.

Miriam tore her eyes away from watching over the children, Mason on the playset and the other three in the grassy area beside it, chasing after a soccer ball. "You got Kurt to say yes to what?"

"Expanding our family," Blaine said, watching her and waiting for it to sink in.

"Really!" Miriam pulled him into a quick, tight hug. "That's wonderful, Blaine! I need details. How, when, all of it."

Blaine laughed, turning back on the bench to look out at the kids as he spoke, "We're adopting again, through the foster care system. We're almost through with both our classes and the homestudy. We're hoping to get approved for two specific school age kids, so they might be with us as soon as this summer."

"That's so fast," Miriam shook her head. "But you don't do this the slow way, do you?" Her eyes caught on Julian out in the field, patiently passing the ball to Liam. "Does Julian know? How's he taking it?"

"Julian's excited. I'm rather surprised he hadn't spilled the beans yet," Blaine said. "He had to talk to the social worker last week. Thank goodness he's too old now to say anything _too_ unpredictable or embarrassing."

"As opposed to a preschool rant about how he'd gotten put in time out for throwing a crayon, and it wasn't fair because the crayon had wanted to know what it was like to fly." Miriam laughed remembering it. "And yet Kurt got to adopt him anyway."

"We just both got the chance to see how red we could blush while he wouldn't shut up about it." Blaine shook his head with remembered embarrassment. "This time it was just a new possible career, which I can handle. I'm sure it will change a dozen more times before he graduates high school, but apparently pastor is now on his list of possibilities."

"He's a people person with a huge sense of right and wrong. I can see it," Miriam turned her gaze back on Julian. "Though would that make Ella a pastor's wife?"

Blaine laughed outright at that. "Probably."

Mateo watched Megan carefully as she took a seat across the dinner table from him at Thomas and Maria's. Sometimes when they sat down together she just wanted to prod him to tell her about something like school or his foster parents. But sometimes it was big news, like that he and Camila were moving again. Thomas and Maria were pretty old, but they were nice. Camila was really happy here.

"How's school been going?" Megan asked. "You finish next week right?"

"Yep," Mateo answered quietly. "It's been good."

"I bet you're excited for summer vacation." Megan's smile made it clear that she expected his answer to be yes, so Mateo just shrugged.

He wasn't really sure he was. Summer vacation would be fun at first. He and Camila'd have lots of time to play. But then by the end that might be boring. Plus, then he'd have to start fourth grade, which meant a new teacher and new classmates, even if he got to stay at the same school. He liked the ones he had.

"There's something else I wanted to talk to you about, Mateo." Megan's words made his heart start to race faster with worry. "I found a family that wants to adopt both you and Camila."

Mateo was so surprised by that he said, "Another one?"

"I think this one will work out better, if you're willing to try," Megan promised. "How would you feel about going to live with Mr. Anderson and his husband?"

Mateo's eyes widened in shock. "Mr. Anderson? My teacher?"

Megan nodded. "He and his husband, Kurt, have a son already, but they want to add a couple more children to their family. They'd really like that to be you and Camila."

He gave it a moment's thought. Mr. Anderson was his favorite teacher ever, but what would it be like to live with him? Would he be as nice about listening carefully? He'd only met Mr. Anderson's husband once, when he brought cookies to the holiday party. They'd been pretty tasty cookies, but that wasn't a good way to know how he'd really be. He knew Mr. Anderson's son, kind of. Other teachers would send him with messages sometimes. Julian was one of the big kids, but he seemed pretty nice.

Mateo hesitated before he nodded with a quick smile. "That would be pretty cool," he decided. At the very least, it wouldn't be like the last couple that didn't like him once they met him. He was pretty sure that Mr. Anderson already liked him. Why else would he want Mateo and Camila to come live with him?

Megan gave him a big smile for agreeing. "Wonderful. We'll set a time up soon for you all to get to spend some time together. Have you ever gotten to meet Kurt?"

Mateo answered by holding up a single finger for the one time Kurt had come into their classroom.

The Friday of the last week of school was their first evening with Camila and Mateo. After much debate, they'd decided on a simple Friday evening game night at their house. If tonight went well, they'd get the kids for the whole weekend the following week and then decide on a date for them to move in.

So it had to go well, Kurt decided. He'd stocked supplies for ice cream sundaes the night before, and he stopped for pizza on the way home. Maybe he could win their favor with food.

He couldn't totally control his nerves as he pulled into the driveway. Blaine had taken Jules with him to go pick up the kids, and he was due back anytime now. Kurt had no doubt that their new duo would love Blaine. Kids always did, and this pair already knew him. But what if they didn't like Kurt? He knew that love was going to take some time to grow on both sides, but what if they flat out disliked him?

He pushed the worry aside and grabbed for the two pizza boxes beside him.

Kurt was just fumbling with his keys at the front door when the sound of a car pulling into the driveway made him turn.

Julian came barrelling out of the back of Blaine's SUV as soon as it was parked. "This is our house! It's not super big, but we have actual grass in the backyard, and all the houses in this area share a swimming pool, which is super awesome."

Kurt bit his lip, trying to fight off an extra dose of worry as Mateo followed Julian out of the car. Julian was obviously more than a little bit excited. Hopefully that wouldn't completely overwhelm Mateo and Camila.

"Hey, Papa! You got pizza? Awesome." Julian paused to give him a one armed hug. "Mateo, this is Papa, er, Kurt. Can I show Mateo our room?"

 _Breathe._ Kurt mouthed at Julian before gave Mateo a friendly smile, searching for signs that the quiet boy was getting pushed over the edge by Julian's constant commentary. "It's nice to meet you, Mateo."

Mateo just nodded with a shy smile, stepping closer to Julian.

Kurt decided that was a sign that Jules wasn't terrifying him at least. "Just for a minute. We don't want the pizza to get cold."

"Thanks, Papa!" Julian darted off, leading the way upstairs. "It's up here. We've got bunk beds and everything. I really hope you like it. Dad even made me clean up for you."

"Julian's got everything under control, huh?" Blaine came up beside Kurt with a grin on his face, holding the hand of a little girl with dark hair woven into two long braids. "I'll take the pizza. You say hi."

The boxes were lifted out of Kurt's hand before he even had a chance to respond. He let the door close, kneeling down just inside the house to put himself on Camila's level. "I'm Kurt. It's really nice to meet you."

Camila bit her lip for a moment, studying him. Kurt was glad to see that someone cared enough to dress her nicely for the night in a gauzy pink shirt and a t-shirt with a sparkly princess castle on it. He must have passed some kind of test because she gave him a smile several degrees less shy than her brother's. "I'm Camila. Did you know Julian talks a lot?"

Kurt tossed his head back and laughed. "I'd noticed. He's not always that loud, I promise." Camila seemed to be satisfied at that, because she twisted to look around Kurt at the living room with wide eyes. "Would you like a tour, too?"

Camila nodded, offering Kurt her hand. "Yes, please." She leaned in closer to whisper to him. "Then can you show me the bathroom?"

Kurt made that the first stop.

Camila warmed up quickly. Mateo took longer. Which was exactly what Blaine had expected. Their kitchen table didn't feel as crowded as he'd worried with an extra chair added.

Blaine slouched back in his chair, watching the scene in front of him. Camila was telling Kurt some kind of story that seemed to involve a dragon, a princess, and explosions. Julian was making inroads on his third slice of sausage and pepperoni pizza, and Mateo- Mateo was staring between his empty plate, not even the crust left behind, and the pizza left in the boxes.

"Would you like another piece?" Blaine asked him softly, hoping not to startle him. When Mateo nodded silently, Blaine prodded, "Sausage and pepperoni or cheese?"

"Pepperoni," Mateo whispered.

At least it was something, so Blaine quickly grabbed a piece of pizza sliding it onto Mateo's plate before he helped himself to another one. "We thought we might play a board game later. Have you played Sorry before?"

Mateo nodded again in reply, and Julian jumped into their conversation. "We always play board games if we're home on Fridays. We've got lots of other cooler ones, but Dad was worried they might be too hard for Camila." Julian shrugged again at that, and Blaine was suddenly glad that Camila was too involved in her story to have heard that. "Sorry's okay though. You get to knock other people back to start at least."

Blaine walked back into the house after driving the kids home to find Kurt stretched out on the couch in pajama pants and a t-shirt from one of his former TV shows. He walked over and picked up the mug on the end table that still held the closed Sorry box. He didn't even have to take a sip to know what it was. "Warm milk?"

"He's scared of me," Kurt tossed the magazine aside.

"He's scared of everyone when he meets them," Blaine pulled out the throw pillow Kurt was leaning on, sliding in to take it's place. "You knew that."

"He wasn't scared of Julian," Kurt huffed.

"Julian's a kid." Blaine wrapped an arm around Kurt's chest, pulling him close. "Just give him time, and he'll relax. Camila wasn't scared of you."

"She's quite the storyteller," Kurt commented, some of the tension draining out of his shoulders. "Did you know she once saved the world from evil aliens by having her dragon blow up their spaceship?"

Blaine laughed. "I wouldn't be surprised."

Kurt let a long breath. "You really think this will work out? He won't keep shying away from me?"

"I know this will work out, eventually" Blaine let his conviction ring through, hoping it was enough to calm Kurt's fears. "Think about this way: you're already shy and someone sends you to meet a family that you're supposed to suddenly become a part of. It'd be overwhelming, and not a little terrifying. Hopefully we'll get them for the whole weekend next week. Why don't we set aside some time for just the two of you to be together without Julian or I? Even if it's just taking him grocery shopping with you."


	4. Chapter 4

Mateo ran the fabric of the brand new comforter through his fingers. He couldn't sleep, and staring at the bunkbed above him wasn't helping. Neither was the fact that he could hear Julian's steady breathing. He obviously hadn't shared the same problem.

It was never easy to sleep the first night in a new house. The bed was different. The people were different. There was a low level of worry clenching his gut tight about what living there would be like. Would they be nice to him? Would they be patient? Or would they hurt him, with words or with hands?

Mateo's fingers traced the edges of a ringed planet sewn into the fabric. Mr. Anderson, Blaine, must have remembered how much he liked reading about space. He tried to make that fact, bedding that had been picked out just for him, help him feel better. It did, a little, but not enough to make his brain shut up.

He tried counting Julian's breaths, hoping they would work like sheep did in the movies. They didn't. He tried telling himself a story, hoping to distract his brain from worrying. It didn't work.

Finally, Mateo crept out of bed. He tiptoed out of the room, not wanting to wake Julian up. He pushed the door next to his open just a little bit wider until he could see Camila. She was sleeping as peacefully as Julian, so he backed up, trying to decide what to do next. Sneak a book into the bathroom for light, maybe?

He startled, eyes wide, when he heard footsteps on the stairs.

"Mateo? It's almost midnight. You're still up?" It was Kurt, already dressed in pajamas.

Mateo stepped back to press himself against the wall, defensively. Was he in trouble already? He gestured silently toward the bathroom door in explanation, even he'd clearly gone the wrong direction out of his bedroom to be headed there.

Kurt nodded, stepping toward Camila's now wide open door to poke his head inside, checking on her before he gave Mateo a longer look. "Couldn't sleep?

Mateo supposed he probably looked too wide awake to really fake having woken up to stumble to the bathroom even if he had been in the right spot in the hallway. Shoot. He shook his head and whispered, "No."

Kurt considered him a for a moment longer before he nodded back to the stairs. "Come back down with me? I have a trick that might help."

Matteo followed him obediently down the stairs and through the living room to the kitchen, wishing the whole way that it had Blaine who had found him out of bed in the middle of the night. At least he could have somewhat predicted what his former teacher would have done. Kurt was a mystery, and not much scared him more than people, men especially, that he didn't know what to expect from.

Kurt gestured toward the table for Mateo to sit and then started pulling things out: a sauce pan, a pair of mugs, some spices, a jug of milk from the fridge. "It might sound silly, but whenever I couldn't couldn't sleep when I was little, my mother would make me warm milk. I still do it today, because it works."

Matteo hmmed his agreement. Warm milk sounded a bit weird, but it was definitely better than being in trouble.

"How's your summer going so far?" Kurt asked as he stirred the milk in the pan.

Matteo shrugged. "'Been fine."

"We finished filming already, so this is like summer break for me, too." Kurt gave him a friendly smile, and Matteo could feel the knot in his stomach loosen a bit. "I have to start back earlier though, about the middle of July."

"You get summer break?" he asked softly, suddenly curious. He hadn't thought about anyone but kids, and maybe their teachers, getting summers off.

"I do." Kurt pulled the pan off the stove, pouring the milk out into the two mugs. "I work for a TV show, and we don't start airing next season until October. Some years I've found work on a movie set during the hiatus, but this year, I decided it'd be nice for all of us to get to be off together."

Mateo thought about that for a moment before he took a slow sip from his mug. It was better than he'd expected, slightly sweet with just a bit of cinnamon. "You're on TV?" He didn't recognize Kurt from the shows he watched, but he knew there were a lot of ones for adult that he didn't get to see.

Kurt laughed outright at that, stopping himself with one hand pressed to his mouth as if he'd forgotten for a moment that everyone else was sleeping upstairs. "No. Not at all. At one point I wanted to be an actor, but then I changed my mind. I work behind the scenes. I get to choose all the clothes that the actors wear and make sure they fit them perfectly."

"What show?" Mateo asked, sipping more of the milk. It seemed to be doing a decent job of making the rest of the knot in his stomach fade away.

"I've worked for a couple shows," Kurt said. "Right now I work for Plymouth High."

Mateo's eyes widened. That was one of his favorite shows. "You do?"

"You know it?" Kurt smiled warmly over. "Who's your favorite character?"

Mateo thought about that for a moment before he whispered, "Conrad."

"Oh, he's a fun one to dress. He cares a lot more about his clothes than the other boys, so I get to pick out really cool stuff for him." Kurt made a face over his mug. "Most of the boys just wear t-shirts, jeans, and hoodies. That's not so much fun for me."

By the time Mateo was tucked back into bed and the kitchen was recleaned, it was almost one a.m. before Kurt finally got to crawl into bed beside Blaine.

Blaine shifted closer, making a sleepy noise of confusion.

"Go back to sleep," Kurt whispered, wrapping an arm around his husband's waist.

"'s late. Not tired?" Blaine blearily replied.

"Mateo was still up, but I think he's asleep for real this time," Kurt smiled into the back of Blaine's shoulder. "Warm milk works every time."

"I could've helped."

"You were asleep. I wasn't. Besides, I think it was good for Mateo for me to do it," Kurt smiled at the memory. "He actually talked to me. Like whole sentences." Enough for Kurt to finally hear the speech problems, articulation something or other, that Blaine had warned him of. He'd been able to understand Mateo, though, so they didn't seem severe enough to Kurt to be the reason the kid was so quiet.

"That's good." Blaine snuggled back even closer until his back was fully pressed up against Kurt.

"It is. And now it's late. Go back to sleep. We can talk about it in the morning."

They'd decided to make the weekend flow as normally as possible. That included kids shows on in the living room while Kurt and Blaine made breakfast. Real breakfast and not the peanut butter toast or bowl of cereal that weekdays often brought.

But a typical weekend also involved Blaine and Julian going to church. Whether or not that was a good idea was the sticking point in their plans.

Blaine opened the oven door, peeking inside to check on the biscuits that were baking as he made his point. "We said that we just wanted this to be a normal slice of life in our house. That includes church. I thought you were on board with me bringing them to church like I do Julian."

"I am. I'm just not sure it's a good idea to start that yet." Kurt slid back into place in front of the stove as soon as Blaine had the oven door shut, stirring a pan of scrambled eggs.

"Why not? You know they'll be welcome." Blaine crossed his arms defensively over his chest, leaning back against the countertop.

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of. I've met the people at your church. They'll be welcoming. Very, very welcoming. Overwhelmingly welcoming," Kurt pointed out.

Blaine laughed dryly. "That is my church family. Overwhelmingly welcoming is a good way to describe them. But that's going to happen no matter when I take them. Is it better to just rip the bandaid off or wait?"

"Mateo talked to me last night. I got whole sentences. Questions even. What if we overwhelm him, and he never talks again?" Kurt gave the eggs a hard poke, aware that was probably an overreaction but not really caring. "Let's wait a week or two. Introduce him to Miriam and Kelly's brood first. He likes other kids, right? Give him some backup."

Blaine stepped forward wrapping his arms around Kurt's waist from behind. "He's not going to stop talking to you forever, even if he gets overwhelmed, which he will from time to time. Letting him meet Miriam's clan isn't a bad idea, though. We'll give it a week or two, but not longer than that."

Kurt turned to press a quick kiss to Blaine's lips. "Thank you."

"Is breakfast rea- Oh, gross." Julian covered his eyes with a long suffering sigh. "Do you have to kiss in the kitchen?"

"Yep." Blaine leaned in and placed a loud smack on Kurt's mouth.

Kurt laughed, pushing Blaine away. "Don't make me burn breakfast." He turned to shake his head over at Julian. "Just for that, you get to set the table."

Alright, so maybe they weren't treating it quite like a normal weekend, Kurt thought as he settled on the couch in the loft next to Mateo and Julian. He usually didn't hang out for Jules video game time, at least not without a book or magazine that was his real focus.

The Lego Super Hero game they were playing wasn't all that much more interesting than the Minecraft one that Julian would have spent all his waking hours on if they let him.

Today, though, he was hoping that being sandwiched between him and Julian for the hour of screen time the boys were allowed that afternoon would help Mateo further relax with Kurt around. He'd even pretend to be interested in what a blocky Captain America and Iron Man were doing on the screen.

"Go left. I'll flank him from the right," Julian ordered, turning his whole body along with the controller. "Bang! Perfect!" He lifted his hand, waiting for a high five from Mateo that was tentatively given.

Kurt clapped, figuring that something good must have just happened. "Very nice. You two are a good team."

Mateo gave him a quick smile, before he hit the pause button. "Bathroom. Be right back."

Kurt watched him go, unsurprised to see Mateo stop at Camila's open door before he headed to the bathroom, watching her playing with Blaine at her dollhouse for a moment. He'd noticed that Mateo was always aware of exactly where Camila was and what she was doing. He didn't say much, but he was constantly checking on her.

"So," Julian said, leaning across the space between them to give Kurt a big grin. "Since Mateo and I are both using the video game time, does that mean it gets to be twice as long?"

"Nice try, Jules." Kurt rolled his eyes at his son. "You have twenty more minutes. Then maybe you should take Camila with you and go play outside."

"Aw, man. Fine," Julian huffed.

"You know that you could easily hire a stylist for this. Avoid the stores all together," Kurt pointed out as he scanned a rack of women's fashions.

"I trust your eye for style." Tina pulled a flowy top off of a rack holding it up for a closer look. One glance at Kurt's expression, and it was quickly returned. "Besides, this way I have an excuse for a shopping trip with a friend."

"Uh huh." Kurt gave her a quick grin to take the sting out of that. "Take advantage of me while you can. Blaine might not be so happy to have me leave him with the kids for this when it jumps from one to three."

"It would make me sound like I've totally sold out to Hollywood to point out that that's what nannies are for, wouldn't it?" Tina half joked. "How did your weekend with the kids go?"

"Pretty well. We just got word this morning that we can take custody on Monday. So this time next week, we'll be a family of five." Kurt shook his head at what still felt like a crazy thought. "I know that we're still probably in a honeymoon period with them, but so far so good."

"How about this?" Tina held up a very floral top that got a quick shake of Kurt's head. He zoomed in instead on a retro black and white print. "All jokes about nannies aside, I am happy for you guys. I hope the whole adoption goes so smoothly."

"Oh, me, too." Kurt added two more shirts to his pile of potentials. "I did want to ask you about coming over next week. Blaine and I were thinking we might have a barbecue Friday evening to introduce the kids to all their honorary aunts, uncles, and cousins in town."

"So bring Mike and the kids? I'll have to check our schedule to be sure, but I don't think we have anything that night."

Kurt pushed the handful of shirts he'd chosen at Tina. "Go try these on."

Blaine paced in front of the living room window. When he'd heard that Mateo and Camila were going to get to move in for real, he'd imagined that he or Kurt would be able to go pick them up and say a last word of thanks to Thomas and Maria for taking such good care of the kids.

Instead, Mateo's CASA had claimed that right, and Blaine was waiting impatiently for him to get there with the kids.

Kurt's arms around his waist stopped Blaine in his tracks. "Breathe. Relax. This isn't the kids first visit."

"This isn't a visit," Blaine replied, turning in Kurt's arms to pull him into a quick, tight hug, taking comfort from it.

"You know what I meant." Kurt laughed softly into Blaine's shoulder. "Isn't being a nervous wreck usually my role in this whole process."

"We have to trade off sometimes. Take turns," Blaine said with a wry smile. "We're just not allowed to be nervous wrecks together at the same time. One of us has to hold the other together."

Kurt laughed at that. "There's a good summary of our marriage for you."

No sooner was a late model SUV pulling up outside, then Julian was tromping down the stairs. "They're here!"

Blaine gave his husband an amused look. It seemed that he hadn't been the only one staring out a window and waiting. "Good. That means you can help them carry anything they need."

" _Dad._ " Julian rolled his eyes to emphasize his exasperated tone and then darted out the door.

"He gets a step closer to being a teenager every day," Kurt muttered before he followed Julian outside at a more sedate pace.

"-so I think we should convince Dad and Papa that we need to go swimming later, right?" Julian was already in the middle of trying to impose his will on Mateo when Blaine got to them. He made a quick mental note. That was something he'd have to watch, either so Julian didn't force Mateo into things or so the kids didn't end up a united front against them. He and Kurt were outnumbered now.

Blaine shook his head and stepped over to offer the man who'd driven them his hand to shake. "Miguel. It's good to see you again."

Miguel smiled back. "I was rather surprised when Megan told me she'd found another family interested in these two so soon, but I was glad to hear it was you."

"Ah, so you're the one that put this bug in my husband's ear." Kurt stepped up beside him, wrapping an arm loosely around Blaine's waist. "I'm Kurt."

"Miguel." He flashed a warm smile at Kurt. "I was looking forward to meeting you."

A tug on Blaine's arm brought his attention down to see Camila thrusting an obviously much loved purple stuffed unicorn toward him. "This is Rex. Can I go show him my dollhouse?"

Blaine gave the unicorn's matted mane a scratch of greeting. "It's nice to meet you, Rex. I hope you like the dollhouse." He gave the unicorn a longer, fake considering look. "Do you think he'd fit inside? Or maybe he could sit on the roof."

Camila giggled at the very thought. "Don't be silly. He's not a reindeer." She tucked the stuffed animal under her arm and headed into the house, talking to it the whole way. "I think you'll find the bed much more comfortable, Rex. It's got soft blankets."

"I think she has the right idea," Kurt said. "Let's get everything inside," he gave Julian a meaningful look, "and then maybe you'd like to stay for a cup of coffee?"

A battered duffel bag was dropped off in both kids bedrooms. The three kids stopped just long enough in the kitchen to scarf down one of the lemon bars Kurt pulled out before they darted into the backyard.

"I can call them back in if you'd like," Blaine offered, taking a seat at the kitchen table and gesturing to one for Miguel.

"No, that's alright. I won't be here long anyway. Let them play. I can peek out and say goodbye to Mateo before I go," Miguel answered watching the kids through the glass slider.

Kurt gave Miguel a quick look over as he poured three mugs of coffee. He looked like he might have come from work, in charcoal dress pants, a white button down with the cuffs folded back, and a loose tie. His black hair was just long enough to swoosh down into his face. "You're Mateo's CASA, right? What exactly does that mean?"

Miguel took the mug Kurt offered, pouring a bit of milk in before he took a sip. "Court Appointed Special Advocate. It means I'm a volunteer who works with kids in the foster care system. We only have a couple ever assigned to us at a time so that we can really get to know them and what they need. The point is for them to have a stable adult in their lives who can follow them across placements. Someone who can advocate for best interests and make sure they're getting what they need. Right now I just have Mateo, and by extension Camila."

Kurt nodded as settled at the table. "So you don't work for CPS?"

Miguel shook his head. "I work for Mateo," he joked. "And the rest of the time I sell real estate. So if you ever want to move…"

Blaine laughed. "With five people now to pack for, I think that's at the bottom of our list."

"My boyfriend just moved in, and packing and unpacking one person was more work than I remembered, so I get you there." Miguel relaxed back in his chair. "It is really nice to get to meet you and see your family together. I've only known Mateo for a short time, but I'm excited for him to find some permanency. The uncertainty of foster care, never really knowing how long you'll get to call a place home, is hard for a child."

Kurt gave Miguel a longer look, wondering silently if he was speaking from experience. "We're excited to have them here. Julian probably even more so than the rest of us, at least until they get into their first real sibling argument."


	5. Chapter 5

Kurt hummed softly to himself as he pulled another load of laundry from the dryer, carrying it into the nearby loft space to start to fold and separate into piles all the little garments the kids had brought with them.

"How's it going?" Blaine asked from the top of the stairs.

"This is the last load. I just need to get it folded, and then I can go through the piles and make a list of what the kids need." Kurt laid a tiny sundress over the arm of the couch until he could get it on a hanger.

"And then Julian will stop whining about being banned from the upstairs," Blaine joked as he sank down and sit at Kurt's side, grabbing a t-shirt to help with the folding.

"He'll survive. I thought they were playing out back?" Kurt pushed a pile of underthings toward Blaine. Those would be fine if he didn't fold them perfectly

"They were. But Julian, who's spent the last few summers playing for hours in the backyard all by himself, claims that he's horribly bored. What happened?" Blaine grabbed the pile, separating Camila's from Mateo's before he started to fold.

"Video games." Kurt bumped shoulders with Blaine. "He's getting older. Hasn't Jules reminded you at least once today that he's going to be a middle schooler in the fall?"

"Did we do this to our parents?"

"Oh, I'm sure that I was much worse. Just ask Dad," Kurt drawled. "Maybe he has to show the younger ones exactly how to press your buttons. Like whining about being bored in June."

"God I hope not. At least give me the time it takes for them to figure that out all on their own." Blaine finished his task and leaned back onto his hands, not reaching for the rest of Kurt's dwindling pile. "Maybe it's just a play for my attention."

"Or maybe he's just more interested in whatever he's building on Minecraft," Kurt pointed out. "Either's probably as likely. A mixture of both. Not being the only child anymore will be an adjustment. We knew that."

"I know." Blaine stood, blowing out a long breath. "Alright, I can go distract him by making help me with lunch."

"And then this afternoon I'll take Mateo and Camila shopping, and you can let him play video games or shower him with attention or whatever needs to happen." Kurt looked over the piles of kids clothes in front of him. "If nothing else, I need to get them swimsuits. That and an industrial sized vat of sunscreen ought to get us through some of the summer boreds."

Clothes shopping with these two around had it's difficulties, Kurt decided. Camila needed frequent reminders not to wander off to look at anything with sparkles. Mateo needed frequent reminders that to make his opinion known. He was going to be the one stuck wearing this, after all.

They hadn't needed as much as Kurt had feared. He'd grabbed some new pairs of underwear for them to replace threadbare ones, and they were completely lacking swimsuits, but otherwise it was just adding a couple more t-shirts and pairs of shorts to round things out for now. He'd reevaluate when back to school time came.

He'd finally resorted to positioning Mateo in front of a rack of kids t-shirts with instructions to pick three. Mateo had spend a long moment staring between all of the options and Kurt before he'd taken him seriously. He'd walked around the back to see all his choices taking plenty of time to consider his options and then picked out one with a space shuttle and two with various superheroes. "These?"

"Spiderman, huh? I think Blaine has all those movies." With all the various actors to play Spiderman throughout the years. "Maybe we'll have to have a movie night soon." Kurt reached out to ruffle Mateo's hair. It was a gesture Jules hated, but Mateo just gave him a shy smile for it. "Should we see what superheroes they have on swimsuits?"

The bags of clothes they ended up with might not have been exactly Kurt's aesthetic, but they were play clothes for kids. What did it really matter? And honestly, he was probably lucky that there was only one of the tank top with a rainbow unicorn in Camila's size, or his arms would have been full of nothing else.

"It's almost going too well. I feel like I'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop," Kurt told his father. He'd brought his laptop into his bedroom for some privacy for the first part of this Skype call, and so he found himself sitting cross legged on his bed with the laptop in front of him, screen and camera tilted up toward him.

"You can't live your life like that, waiting for the bad," Burt reminded him.

"I know. I know." Kurt leaned back on his hands, trying to form the words to express how he was feeling. "But I don't want to ignore the possibility of hard times, and have them take me unaware. Besides, the kids are getting along unnaturally well for siblings."

"Well, I'm sure that part won't last. Even you and Finn bickered sometimes, and you were teenagers. They're probably just in a honeymoon period."

"Probably. I worry about Mateo, though. Camila's young enough that she's just happy to be included in what the boys are doing or she goes off and makes her own fun. I'm afraid that Mateo's going to let Jules run roughshod over him. He's so quiet, and Jules is so not." Kurt sat up straighter, emphasizing his points with a poke into the bedspread. "What if that's the only reason they're getting along so well, and Mateo's secretly miserable?"

"I guess he'll have to learn to stand up for what he wants. Not a bad lesson in life," Burt pointed out. "And you and Blaine will be watching to make sure it doesn't go too far. Now, am I going to get to meet my new grandkids or not?"

Kurt stood, laughing, and grabbed the laptop off the bed. "Is Carole there? She won't want to miss this."

He could hear Burt calling for his wife as he walked the laptop down the stairs, settling it on the kitchen table. Kurt pulled the screen door to the backyard open and stuck his head out. "Kids! Grandpa Burt and Grandma Carole are on the computer. Come say hi."

There was a clatter of noise and jumble of limbs that separated itself into three children, kicking off shoes before Julian made it to the screen first. "Gramps! Grandma! Are you coming out to visit this summer?" Julian asked as he held a hand up for a virtual high five.

Carole spoke up with a warm smile for Julian. "We'll be there second week in July, before your papa has to go back to work. We thought maybe a trip to the beach together might be in order this year?"

"I have a new swimsuit!" Camila piped in, climbing up onto her knees on a chair so that she could lean forward and stare at her new grandparents on the screen. "It has Ariel on it, because I want to swim as well as she does." Kurt gave the back of Camila's shirt a quick tug as she leaned in close enough to press her nose to the screen. "You're old. Like Thomas and Maria."

"Their last foster parents," Kurt supplied as he got Camila to settle back in her chair.

She just nodded and continued straight on. "You've got wrinkles like them, but their skin is darker. I bet you need as much sunscreen as Kurt. Otherwise he says it would look like a dragon breathed on him."

Burt chuckled. "We've earned all these wrinkles, too. You must be Camila."

"Of course I am." The little girl held up her arm, showing them the bronze tone to her skin. "I'm in between, but Kurt says I need to wear sunscreen anyway."

"Does it keep the dragons away for you, too?" Carole asked with amusement.

Camila gave Kurt a quick worried look. "Oh, I hope not. The dragons are my friends."

Julian just rolled his eyes. "It stops the sun from hurting you, not dragons. That's why it's called SUNscreen."

"Oh, okay." Camila sank back into her chair with a pleased look.

Suddenly realizing what, or rather who, was missing, Kurt glanced around to find Mateo, standing just out of view of the computer camera. He reached out to wrap an arm around the boy's shoulders for comfort and to tug him gently into Burt and Carole's view. "So you've met Camila, and this is Mateo."

Mateo gave them a shy smile, standing so that he was practically hidden behind Kurt. "Hi."

"Hi, Mateo. It's so good to meet you. So, tell me, are you a fan of the beach?" Carole asked with a warm smile for him.

"How did you end up with grill duties?" Blaine asked with confusion as he finally found Mike, flipping a row of hamburgers.

"It seemed like my place as the only straight man here," Mike joked dryly.

"And who do you think uses the grill when you're not around?" Blaine fired back with a quick laugh.

"Kelly." Mike kept the joke running with a quick look toward Miriam's wife. "I'm pretty sure you only drag the grill out when a group of us are here. Otherwise you and Kurt make fancy things in the kitchen."

"Or call for pizza." Blaine leaned against a post of the patio overhang the screen door wide open behind him. Their backyard wasn't that big, so with eight kids running around the place, they'd taken over not only the outside, but the whole bottom floor.

"Kurt asked me if I'd be willing," Mike said, finally giving a serious answer. "We thought it might make Mateo less nervous if I was tied down to one place."

Blaine sighed softly, letting his head thunk against the pole. "Because you're a guy. Right. And a stranger, which makes you doubly scarey. Someday we'll find a way to get him past that."

"Time. Security." Mike shrugged grabbing some hot dogs to lay them out over the grill's flames. "They haven't even been with you a week."

"Time, security, and therapy if need be," Blaine agreed. "I'm most worried about Cooper's first visit. Finn'll scare him just as much, I'm sure, but he'll figure that out and back off. Cooper? Not so much. But I can't keep him from visiting, either. That connection's important for Julian to have. You know?"

"Maybe you can have him take Julian out for some special bonding time. Go mini-golfing or something," Mike suggested.

"That's not a bad idea. Julian's getting old enough for me not to be so terrified that Coop's going to do something stupid if they're out alone. I at least trust that Julian'd call Kurt or I before it got too far."

Mike flipped one of the burgers again, giving it a good look. "The burgers are done. Got a plate you want them on?"

A plate of food in everyone's hand was one of the few sure fire ways to get all eight kids sitting down. The older kids, from Ella down to Mason, were all seated out on the grass in their own little circle, while the adults got chairs around the table on the patio, a few extra from the kitchen table shoved in at the corners. Mike had his toddler, Nora, bouncing on his knee, eating pieces of hot dog and gnawing on apple slices .

Kurt sank back farther in his chair, watching it all. This was perfection on a warm June night. Twenty year old Kurt would never have thought so, but something had changed along the line until there was nothing better than a peaceful evening with his chosen L.A. family.

"I think we're going to get sucked into a cycle of playdates," Tina said, pulling him out of his reverie with a nod toward where her older daughter Avery and Camila were sitting, the two so close together that their knees touched. "They've been thick as thieves since we got here."

"I envy kids the ease with which they make friends," Kurt replied with a quick smile. "All they have to do is smile at each other, and they're off. Besties."

"I think Avery's just excited to have someone who wants to play dolls with her rather than thinking that snatching one and running off giggling is a great form of entertainment." Tina gave Nora a quick, affectionate look. "I still can't believe Avery's starting Kindergarten in the fall."

Miriam jumped into the conversation with a quick shake of her head. "I still can't believe Mason's missing the cut off by ten days. I could finally have had all three kids in school."

Kurt laughed with a quick shake of his head. "How quickly the viewpoint changes between child one and child three."

Mike stood with a quick sniff. "And you two were smart enough to add kids to your family that are already out of diapers. Tina? Where'd you leave the diaper bag?"

Kurt ran a brush through Camila's long hair, sitting cross legged behind her on the twin sized bed in her room. "When we get you all ready, Blaine and I are going to take you to church."

"I know. You told me. Julian says that's weird. 'Cause you don't go to church." She tilted her head back to stare up at him. "Why don't you go to church, Kurt? I go to church. Mateo goes to church. Thomas and Maria go to church."

"Not everyone believes the same things. Or goes to church. When you're older, that's a choice you'll get to make for yourself." Kurt waited for her to look forward again before he started back in on her hair, sliding a hair tie around his wrist before he began to weave it into one long braid.

"That's silly. Why wouldn't you want to go visit God and sing songs?" Camila asked, fingers fidgeting over the bedspread as she tried to sit still.

Kurt had no idea how to respond to that in five year old terms, so he went for the next best thing, distraction. "Do you want to wear your yellow sundress today or the purple one?"

"Yellow! It's bright like the sun." Camila tilted her head back again to give Kurt a quick concerned look. "Does that mean you'll need sunscreen? So my dress doesn't burn you?"

Kurt pulled their SUV into the parking lot of the church, concentrating on finding a good parking place and trying to avoid how odd it felt to be there in the first place.

As a rule, Blaine and Jules came to church. He didn't. After all, Blaine and Jules believed in God. He didn't. Church picnics, pool parties, and game nights were on the list of things he'd attend. Church services weren't.

Originally, Blaine was going to bring the kids here himself today, too. Then they'd started discussing backup plans in case Mateo got overwhelmed, and suddenly Kurt's presence was added to the list. He was there to help. To add another comforting presence. And if need be to take Mateo to the donut shop around the corner until church got out.

He turned the car off and climbed out, stopping for just a moment to look up at the cross on the steeple of the church before he turned to find Mateo standing behind him, staring just as intently at the brick building. Kurt gave him a quick smile and offered his hand out, "Come on. We'll do this together."

A week could make a huge difference, Blaine thought as he watched Kurt and Mateo walk in front of him, hand in hand. A week ago, Mateo'd still been unsure about Kurt. Now he was taking comfort from him.

A small hand slipped into Blaine's, and he smiled down at Camila.

"We're in a parking lot. I'm supposed to hold your hand," she informed him seriously.

"That's right. You are. You ready for this?" Blaine asked, leading her toward the church doors.

"Of course. Is Avery going to be here? I want to show her my dress." Camila twisted against Blaine's hand to make the skirt sway.

"Not today, but I bet Mason will be." Blaine gave the pastor a smile as they made their way to where he was standing outside in front of the church doors, welcoming his parishioners in.

"Blaine. Julian. I see you have the whole family here today," he said, offering out his hand to shake Kurt's free one.

"Pastor Dan!" Julian spoke up for all of them, a big smile on his face as he got to take the important role of introducing his new siblings. Blaine could hardly deny him this. "Papa decided to come with us today. And this is Camila and Mateo. They're my new sister and brother."

"Well isn't that wonderful!" Pastor Dan gave three children all a wide smile. "It's very nice to have you joining us this morning."


	6. Chapter 6

"-hate this mess!"

"They're just socks. They don't even stink that bad."

"Socks don't go on the floor! They go in the basket."

"Geez, Mateo. It's a bedroom. It's supposed to be messy."

"Relaxing! Supposed to be relaxing. Mess isn't relaxing."

The sound of raised voices brought Blaine scurrying up the stairs to see what was going on. He froze when he saw Kurt standing in front of Julian and Mateo's door with a hand raised.

"Shouldn't we stop them?" Blaine leaned in to whisper.

"If it gets too heated." Kurt shook his head. "I've never heard Mateo talk this much."

"Or this loudly," Blaine added. "That's why you don't want to stop them?"

Kurt nodded silently, listening to Mateo grumble for a moment about how beds should be made. "That's part of it. This's probably been building up for the last month. He deserves a chance to express himself before we break it up." Kurt paused for a moment, a smile spreading across his face. "And listen to how much like _siblings_ they sound."

They gave it another long minute, and Blaine realized that Kurt was right. They did sound like siblings. It was amazing what a month, June bleeding into July, could do.

And then Julian swore at his brother. Kurt quickly pushed the door open. "Jules. Language."

"Your Grandpa and Grandma are coming tomorrow. Is this how you want them to hear you?" Blaine asked, jumping in right alongside Kurt.

Mateo stared down at the floor, flushing red, but Julian just gave them his best mini-Kurt look. "But Mateo said-"

Kurt cut him off with a raised hands, "I'm sure Mateo didn't cuss. Not acceptable language at your age." He glanced between the two boys. "Next time I expect to hear you discussing your problems at a reasonable volume in a polite tone. Get it?" Mateo nodded quickly, but Kurt had to wait longer for Julian to acquiesce. "Now, Jules, you need to get this mess picked up. I'm doing laundry for the trip in a few minutes, and if your clothes aren't in your hamper, they aren't getting clean."

With that, Kurt spun on his heels and walked out. Blaine followed him a moment later, finding Kurt on the couch in the loft space, head in his hands. "You think they'll actually use a polite tone next time?" Blaine asked with amusement, sinking down to sit beside Kurt, snaking an arm up over his husband's shoulders.

"Absolutely not." Kurt leaned against Blaine's side "I didn't mess that up, did I?"

Blaine was silent for a moment, listening for noise from the boys' room. "Well, they stopped fighting, Julian is hopefully cleaning, and Mateo wasn't in tears. I'd say you did pretty well."

A few days in San Diego with his parents had sounded like a good pre-back to work trip to Kurt. The logistics were more complicated this year than they had been in the past, though. They were picking Burt and Carole from LAX and then heading straight down the coast. The problem was that this now required two cars. They couldn't just squish everyone into Blaine's SUV like they'd done on previous visits.

Hauling all the kids inside to baggage claim wasn't as easy as bringing just Julian, either, especially now that he was older. Kurt kept an especially careful hold on Camila's hand, counting on Mateo to stay close, out of nerves if nothing else.

"Planes come in here, Papa?" Camila asked, eyes wide as she stared at all the people around them. "All these people flew in?"

"Or they came to pick people up, just like we are. Or maybe to drop them off," Kurt explained as he steered them toward baggage claim.

"Grandpa and Grandma will be here? And then we'll go to the beach?" Camila asked, and Kurt just nodded in response. Those were questions he'd already answered at least three times today.

Julian and Blaine had driven separately, and Mateo ran toward them as soon as they were spotted.

"They've already got a baggage carousel assigned to their flight, so they must be landing soon," Blaine said, giving Kurt a quick peck of greeting.

Indeed, they didn't have long to wait, and to entertain the kids, until people started to surround the carousel.

"There's Grandpa!" Julian was the first one to spot them, running over to Burt to get hugs from him and Carole. "I'm so glad you came. Come meet Camila and Mateo for real. Mateo's pretty quiet," he warned as he took Carole's hand, tugging her toward the group, "so if he doesn't talk to you, that doesn't mean he doesn't like you."

"I know. We've talked to them on Skype, remember," Carole said gently stopping in front of the family to offer a hug to Kurt and then to Blaine. "It's so good to see you boys."

"They're not boys," Camila said with a bright laugh. "They're all grown up."

"Kurt'll always be my kid," Burt said, pulling his son into a tight hug before he knelt down to Camila's level, offering her his hand. "It's nice to officially meet you, Ms. Camila."

Camila giggled at hearing her name that way. She ignored his hand, diving in instead for a hug. "Papa said you're going with us to the beach. I'm going to swim in the ocean, just like Ariel."

Carole laughed, offering her arms out for a hug as well. "Hopefully not as deeply as Ariel does. I'd hate for you to decide you're going to live under the water. Then how would we talk?"

"I don't have a tail. I couldn't live underwater," Camila said, as if that was an obvious fact.

Burt chuckled, and then turned to find Mateo who'd hidden himself halfway behind Kurt. "Nice to see you not over a screen, kid. Come help me find our luggage?"

Blaine offered Mateo his hand, and his silent support. "Do you have one back checked or two?"

Baggage was claimed. A bathroom break was taken, because it hadn't taken too long to remember what kinds of things were important before any kind of car trip with a five-year-old.

The benefit of going the wrong way against the late morning traffic was that his car was still moving. He might not be going quite the speed limit, but at least he wasn't in the middle of a parking lot.

"This is one thing that I like about living in Ohio," Burt cut in from the passenger seat. "I can't remember the last time I was on a road this crowded."

Kurt laughed. "I was just thinking that it's not too bad right now. I'm not looking forward to starting my drive back to work next week. I certainly haven't missed that parking lot."

"There are lots of people going to the beach?" Camila piped up from her booster seat in the back.

Burt turned to face her with a shake of his. "People going all kinds of places. So many people live here."

"And the public transportation sucks," Kurt grumbled, as he changed lanes to move around a particularly slow car.

He tilted the review mirror for a moment once he was back in the steady flow of traffic to get a quick look at Mateo. He and Blaine had decided that maybe riding in the same car as Burt would be a good thing for him, help him to get over his fear faster. Mateo had been quiet, but he didn't look particularly scared. Hopefully that meant that it'd been the right call.

"-and then we need to add towers. For the princesses with long hair," Camila instructed, passing a small green bucket over to Burt. "You can use that."

Kurt hovered over them for a moment, watching Camila boss her new grandfather around in the name of a perfect sand castle. Both Camila and Burt seemed pretty satisfied with the arrangement, though, so he moved on, spotting Mateo sitting on their spread out towels.

Kurt took a seat beside him, digging in his bag for sunscreen as a good cover for his actions. "Not interested in a swim today?" Kurt asked. He'd taken all three kids to their community pool enough times this summer to know that Mateo could swim at least passably well.

Mateo shrugged, fingers picking at the beach towel. "Not right now." His eyes caught on Camila and Burt and stayed there.

Kurt held himself back from making an 'ah' sound. He might not know all of the details of Mateo and Camila's past, but two things had always been clear. Mateo was wary around new men, and he was very protective of his sister. With the two combined, it'd be hard to steer him off to the waves. "I bet Camila will want to swim when she finishes her sand castle."

"I'd go in the waves with her." Mateo looked out toward the ocean. "The waves don't hurt do they, Kurt?"

"You've never swum in the ocean," Kurt quickly concluded. "They don't hurt, at least not as gentle as the waves here are. They're fun to dive around in." He gestured out toward where Blaine and Julian were splashing through them, trying to ride the waves in with their body. Carole was nearby, sitting in the sand where the highest waves would just lap up over her waist. "I bet Jules would happy to show you the best way to play in them."

Mateo nodded slowly, his gaze moving back to his sister. "Maybe later."

Kurt didn't fight it as he slathered a bit more sunscreen over his nose. He certainly did not want to start back to work the next week with his face peeling. "Alright. I think I'm going to take a break myself and read. The sun's a pretty good spot to relax and do that. You brought a book, didn't you?"

Blaine fell into step beside Kurt on the way back to the hotel, watching the children walk ahead of them with Burt and Carole.

"This was a nice afternoon. I think we might have worn the kids out in the waves," Blaine commented, slipping his hand into Kurt's.

"Temporarily at least. By the time we finish dinner, I'm sure they'll have recharged," Kurt said.

"Then maybe we should take advantage of Burt and Carole's visit," Blaine offered with a quick glance back over his shoulder toward the ocean. "Leave them to watch the kids and come back down here for a little time together."

"Stroll on the beach while the sun sets? Sounds romantic." Kurt stared ahead at the kids for a moment before he sighed. "But I'm not sure if I want to leave Mateo with Burt without one of us yet. He's still scared."

"True. Maybe the last night we're here? Surely by then Burt will have won him over." Blaine followed Kurt's gaze. "He's walking with them. That has to say something about him starting to get more comfortable, doesn't it?"

"And he's holding Camila's hand. It might have as much to do with keeping watch over her as it does getting more comfortable."

It was Blaine's turn to sigh. "It's times like these where I wish he'd talk more freely, tell us what he's really thinking."

"Me, too." Kurt gave Blaine's hand a quick squeeze. "It might be time to revisit our conversations about finding a therapist for Matteo."

Blaine nodded. "If we've gone back and forth on the topic this many times, it's probably a good idea. I'll call Miguel or Megan when we get back into town and get the details worked out."

After two days at the beach, they'd loaded back into cars and driven to the zoo for the day.

Mateo decided pretty quickly that he liked the place. There were huge hills, but it was also the biggest zoo he'd ever seen, full of different kinds of animals. They'd seen elephants and apes already, and now they in a long line to see panda bears.

"I wish I could take one home to snuggle," Camila told Carole as she tried to poke her head through the bars.

Mateo grabbed her hand, pulling her back. "You'll get stuck."

"Not me," Camila stuck her tongue out at her brother but didn't try sticking her head back through. "And the panda bears won't eat me."

"You don't know that. They're bears. What if one bit your nose?" Mateo worried.

"I'd protect her." Burt smiled down at the two children. "I promise that I won't let any panda eat your sister."

Mateo wanted to tell him that that was his job. Protecting Camila had always been his job, since she was a baby, even when he'd gotten in trouble for stealing milk from the school cafeteria because he didn't have anything else to give her. He couldn't tell Burt that, though, so he just nodded silently.

"Oh, look! You can see them!" Julian stood up on tiptoes to get a better look.

"You can?" Camila jumped up trying for a look. "No fair being taller."

Kurt laughed and scooped Camila up so she could see over the people in front of him.

"Thank you, Papa! They're cute!"

Mateo leaned against the railing, willing to wait for his chance to see them, secretly glad that it was Kurt holding his sister. He gotten used to Burt, and he seemed pretty nice. Kurt he knew he could trust, though.

"Actual time alone."

"Actual time alone," Kurt entwined his fingers with Blaine's. He tilted his head back to take a deep breath of salty ocean air. "With not a kid in sight to come interrupt us."

"We still have our phones," Blaine pointed out.

"Hush, or I'll have to throw them into the ocean."

Blaine laughed, tugging Kurt over toward a bench. "I think that's been the hardest adjustment from one to three. So little time alone or with just you."

"At least before bedtime," Kurt waggled his eyebrows, getting a bright laugh out of Blaine. "Of course there was that one day…"

"God, I'm so thankful we had our door locked. Camila did not need to see _that_." Blaine gave his head a quick shake to try to knock that memory right out of it.

"Imagine that one going to their social worker." Kurt turned sideways on the bench, propping his feet up on the empty space beside him so that he could use Blaine as a backrest.

"I'd rather not. We made the right choice though, didn't we? To adopt them?" Blaine asked, sliding an arm around Kurt's chest.

"We did. It's busy, but it's a good busy. And they'll be in school in a month or so and back on more of a routine."

Blaine made a face at the thought. "Don't remind me. I'm not wishing the rest of my summer break away."

Kurt laughed. "Well mine's done and gone. Maybe I'm just projecting that."

"Are you excited to be back?" Blaine asked.

"You know what, I think I am. I've found a few great ideas online in the last few weeks for Conrad and Angelique, and I can't wait to hold them in my hands." Kurt tilted his head back to give Blaine a searching look. "You'll be fine alone with all three kids, won't you?"

"I'll have Burt and Carole's help for a couple of days. And I spend the school year watching over twenty-five kids a day. I'll make it just fine with three." Blaine was happy to find that he sounded confident in that at least. "Angelique and Conrad are your favorite to dress aren't they?"

"So much so. They make costuming a show about teenage superheroes worth it. Conrad gives me an excuse to use all the interesting male fashion that I've had my eyes on for years. To go beyond the jeans and hoodies of the rest of the boys on Plymouth High and the black suits of my last couple shows." Kurt turned his gaze back to the sun starting to set over the ocean as continued. "And Angelique is just plain entertaining. She's far from the typical supermodel build, but she flaunts every curve she's got. A total vixen. That makes her so much fun to shop for."

The last full day that Burt and Carole were in town also happened to fall on the first day the school office reopened for Fall registration. Blaine jumped at the chance to get all the paperwork filled out for Mateo and Camila without needing to drag all three kids along with him and left them once again in Burt and Carole's capable hands.

He strolled into the front office with a smile on his face, giving the office manager a warm, "Hi, Donna. How's your summer been?"

"Too fast." Donna stood up from her desk to walk to the counter, giving Blaine a confused look. "Classrooms won't be open for you to work in for at least a couple more weeks, Blaine."

"No, no. I'm in no hurry for that." Blaine quickly shook his head. "I need registration forms."

"Isn't your Julian off to middle school?" Donna asked even as she nodded toward the pile of registration packets on the counter.

"He is. Sixth grader. Still can't believe it." Blaine grabbed two of the piles and clipboard with a pen attached. "But Kurt and I took custody of Mateo and Camila Sanchez this summer."

"Oh! Camila's a doll." Donna strode back to a box of envelopes on her desk, flipping through them until she found the right two. "Placement letters are going out tomorrow, but you might as well take these now. They'd end up at the wrong address otherwise."

Blaine gave her a quick thanks and took the whole stack over to a chair. He pulled the paperwork he needed out of his messenger bag to start filling in the forms, making himself do the whole pile before he tore into either of the letters.

Camila's didn't worry him at all. The whole first grade team was wonderful, and even if she got the new teacher coming in, he was sure the rest of the team would catch the new teacher up.

Mateo's on the other hand…

He dug into that one first, smoothing the letter out and staring at it for a moment. He blew out a long breath, mentally counting to ten. He'd filled out placement forms for his whole class last year, and he knew that he'd specifically recommended that Mateo go into either of the other two teacher's classrooms.

Temper as under control as he was getting it, Blaine took the completed forms and Mateo's letter up to the desk. "Who do I need to talk to about getting Mateo's class placement changed?"

"Hmmm?" Donna walked back over, grabbing the letter to take a quick look. "Wilson's a good teacher."

"Not for Mateo. If I have a kid I need someone to whip into shape, I'd fully recommend Doug Wilson's class. For a really quiet boy we're trying to get to not be so afraid? He'd shut down the first day." Blaine tapped the letter. "I know that I recommended this not happen."

"You know how things work. You all create even classes, and then they get assigned to a teacher," Donna said. "And we don't take parent requests."

Blaine shook his head over at her, forcing a tight grin. "Donna, I work here. I know that's the official line, but I also know it's not really true. Especially for the children of teachers in the building. Come on, if you switch him, no one will be the wiser. Otherwise I'm going to have to start bugging Mrs. Watts, and I'd hoped to make it another year without being on the principal's naughty list."

Donna gave Blaine a long look, as if trying to decide if he was really serious about pushing it up the chain. She must have decided he was, because she turned to grab a list of kids in each class.

"Hmm… We've had a few withdrawals, so Wilson's numbers are actually the highest right now. I could balance the classes out by moving him into Alvarez's room," she suggested.

Blaine nodded quickly. Sophia Alvarez was the Momma Bear of the fourth grade staff. Too soft if anything. Not a bad fit for Mateo. "Sounds good. You're the best, Donna."

"I never have to hunt you down for attendance paperwork. It's a good trade off." She took the rest of the paperwork, leafing through it. "Let me just get this processed for you."

 **A/N: Thank you all for reading! I'm expecting there to be one more full chapter of this and then an epilogue. I hate to do this so close to being finished, but I may be late getting next weeks' chapter up. Report cards are due, and comment writing takes ages. I'll get it to you as soon as I can.**


	7. Chapter 7

"I spend the school year watching over twenty-five kids a day. I'll make it just fine with three."

Blaine had decided that those words should probably be engraved onto his tombstone. Most days he and the kids had a wonderful time. They went to pool, played in the yard and with the neighbor kids, and generally wore themselves all out.

But then there were the other kind of days, the ones where the kids bickered about any little thing. Sometimes Blaine thought Mateo was so quiet most of the time because he was saving all his words for petty fights with Julian and bossing Camila around. Someone, usually Camila, whined about not liking lunch, even though they'd cheerfully eaten the same thing the week before. Julian brought up being bored at least five times an hour. On those days, Blaine couldn't wait to see Kurt walk through the door. And who could really blame him if he then gave his husband a quick hug and disappeared for a long bath or a run?

And today was turning into one of those days. The morning had gone well enough, but everything had started to fall apart at lunch. First, Camila had decided she hated it.

"This is gross. Can I have macaroni?" Camila shoved her plate away.

"It's a turkey sandwich. How can you not like a turkey sandwich?" It came out of his mouth before Blaine could catch himself. He knew how much a comment like that was not going to help.

"It's slimey. See? Slimey turkey." Camila pulled her sandwich apart to wave a slice of turkey at him. "Only dragons like slimey turkey, and I am NOT a dragon."

By the time he'd assured Camila that A) her turkey was fine, B) he was not making her macaroni, and C) yes, she could have ketchup on it if she would just eat the darn sandwich, Julian and Mateo had decided that tossing grapes up into the air to catch them in their mouths was highly entertaining.

They were sentenced to clean the kitchen and dining room floor, including the splattered mass of several grapes that had missed someone's of course that only led to bickering about whose idea it was and who had made the mess.

The day went downhill from there, and by 1:30 Blaine was on the phone with Miriam. "Save me with a playdate?"

An hour later, Blaine and the kids pulled up to the park closest to Miriam's house. The kids tumbled out of the car and went running, pairing up with Miriam's kids to play. Blaine sank down beside Miriam on a nearby park bench.

"I thought you could use this," Miriam said by way of greeting, passing a white paper coffee cup over to Blaine.

"Oh God yes." Blaine clasped it between his hands giving her a quick smile of thanks. "I'm so glad you were free."

"One of those days?" Miriam asked, kicking off her flipflops to tuck her feet under her on the bench.

"You know, I've never really understood before the parents that are excited for the summer to be over and school to start." Blaine took a long drink from the coffee cup. "I understand it now."

Miriam laughed. "The honeymoon is over?"

"The honeymoon is over. And they need some time apart." Blaine's eyes caught on Camila, climbing onto a nearby play structure as she chased after Mason. "I was hoping playing with your kids might help with that as well as letting me keep my sanity."

"Ah. The bickering. I am familiar with the bickering." Miriam grabbed her own coffee cup, picking at the paper sleeve on it, rather than drinking. "Maybe look at it this way, at least your new two are comfortable enough with you and Kurt now to risk getting in trouble."

"Huh. I hadn't thought about that. Comfortable enough with each other to know exactly which buttons to push, too. Julian purposely threw dirty socks onto Matteo's bed the other day, because he was mad and knew exactly how to get a reaction." Blaine shook his head. "Kurt says they're acting like brothers. I don't remember Coop and I ever being quite like that, though."

"But isn't Cooper older than you? By quite a few years?" Miriam nodded out toward where Liam and Matteo were sitting in the shade under the slide. "As the mother of three, let me tell you that sounds perfectly normal, if aggravating. If Liam hasn't done that to annoy Ella yet, I'm sure it's somewhere on his list."

"This is why I keep you around," Blaine joked dryly. "You can talk me off the edge."

"I thought it was just my undying friendship." Miriam tossed the dry humor right back. "But maybe that's one and the same. What's a friend for if not to talk you off the edge?"

"Support and coffee. What more could I possibly ask for?" Blaine raised his cup as if he was giving a toast. "How has your week been going?"

"And the boys should actually be down for the night this time," Kurt said as he hit the bottom stair.

"Thank God." Blaine had stretched himself out on the couch, the TV on with the sound turned down low. He couldn't have said what was actually playing, but it had nice just to zone out to.

"Long day?"

Blaine answered with a nod as Kurt lifted his feet to slide underneath. "Do you remember how nice it was when Mateo and Julian first fought? It was this relief, that Mateo wasn't going to just let Julian walk all over him."

"Yes?" Kurt made the word a question.

"We were fools."

"He and Julian got into another spat today?" Kurt asked, running a hand lightly over Blaine's leg.

"Not a big one. Just disagreed about _everything_ all afternoon long _._ I swear that if one of them said the sky was blue, the other would have had to come up with a different color, just because," Blaine whined.

"Tomorrow will be a new day. They seemed to be getting along a little too well when I went upstairs. Using their little clip light to read if they can't sleep is fine with me. Giggling maniacally is not." Kurt shrugged. "Every movie I've seen and book I've read makes it seem like it's normal for brothers to argue."

"Maybe it's a normal I'd be okay without." Blaine sighed softly. "Miriam seemed to think it was pretty average, too. She said maybe Camila and Mateo just trust us now not to have to try to act perfectly."

"Sounds reasonable," Kurt agreed. "But still no fun when you're the one home all day with the three of them. Maybe we went too far with avoiding scheduling activities. We thought that keeping the summer as much for family time as possible would help with bonding."

"And I think it has. Maybe a little too well," Blaine laughed dryly. "Next summer we'll just ship them all off to camp."

"Now that sounds like one of Tina's jokes," Kurt said. "A week or two of day camp for each of them might be a good thing, though. We should get them into an activity or two a week when the next round starts. I bet Camila would love to take classes at Mike's studio."

"And I can talk to Mateo about what kind of activity he's interested in. Maybe some theater or dance classes would help him come even more out of his shell," Blaine suggested. "I should find a baseball conditioning program for Julian, let him wear himself out a little bit and get ready for fall ball."

"We've got a light schedule next Tuesday. Why don't I take Mateo into work with me? He loves _Plymouth High_. I bet he'd love to go see the set. Then maybe you could meet up with me for lunch with the other two. It'd give them a break from each other at least." Kurt gave Blaine's leg a pat.

"And Coop will be back in town sometime next week as well. I bet I could convince him to take Julian for at least part of a day. Maybe send them to play laser tag or something." Blaine let out a long breath. "This is going to work, isn't it?"

"Of course it is. We can handle anything together. Remember? If you're getting overwhelmed or you need a minute to breathe, call me, okay? And worst comes to worst, you can always give them some extra video game time." Kurt waited for Blaine to nod. "What would you do at school if the kids were having a rough day?"

"Go home and drink," Blaine joked.

"Hah. I know just how much alcohol there is in this house, and right now it's a total of one bottle of wine that we've had in the cabinet for weeks."

"I'd take the kids that were most annoying me and start looking for positive things," Blaine answered more honestly. "Try to flip my mindset to point out to the kids all the great things they were doing and hope it rubbed off."

"There you go. I knew you knew more about this whole raising kids things than I did." Kurt gave Blaine a quick smile. "And if you'd like a way to work off some of the tension tonight, I know a very effective one. The kids are hopefully asleep, and we have a door that locks."

Blaine grabbed the remote, quickly flipping the TV off. "Now you're talking."

Kurt had never seen Mateo so excited as he had been on the drive to the studio with Kurt. The kid had practically been vibrating in the back seat, and, for Mateo, he'd talked up a storm, speaking in full paragraphs even.

He'd quieted down as Kurt signed them through the studio gate, only to resume conversation as they walked from the parked car toward the wardrobe department.

"You have to sign in like that everyday?" Mateo asked, eyes wide as he stared at all the buildings and facades around them.

"Everyone does." Kurt gave Mateo a quick look over. "You've got your backpack. Good. Any time you get bored, you can just take out a book to read. There might be times I get really busy. Now remember, if you see any of the actors you know from TV you've got to play it cool," he teased gently. "They're just playing a character on TV, so don't expect them to be the same person in real life, alright?"

Mateo nodded with a look that Kurt was sure must have rubbed off from Julian. "We talked about that last night." The 'duh' was unspoken.

"Right." Kurt reached over to ruffle Mateo's hair, getting a smile in return. "Sometimes us old folk forget what we've said."

Mateo laughed. "You're not old. Thomas and Maria were old, but you're not."

Kurt smiled down. "I'm glad you think so. Alright, this is me in here." He pushed the door open and led Mateo into a room dominated by racks of neatly hung clothes.

"Kurt! Our shipment came in." A tall woman with dark hair cut into short curls stuck her head out from around the racks to greet him.

"Great! We've got time this morning to go through them and get them sorted and catalogued. Then I want to spend some time seeing if we can find some great options for the girls for the big Homecoming Dance scene coming up." Kurt tucked an arm around Mateo's shoulders, pulling him close. "Ali, this is my son, Mateo. He's joining us for the morning."

"Awesome! Can I put him to work?" Ali gave Mateo a huge smile. "How are you with a camera?"

"Okay?" Mateo gave the whole room a wide eyed look. "This is a lot of clothes."

"We've got lots of characters. We keep a lot of their wardrobe pieces so that we can pull items out to reuse them later. It's all carefully arranged. Come on, I'll give you a tour and then show you how to use the camera. Just shove your bag over there," Ali said with broad gestures.

Kurt was suddenly very grateful for Ali's bubbly personality. Sometimes it was a bit much on a Monday morning, but today it seemed to be just the thing to put Mateo at ease with her.

By the time they'd gone through all of the new pieces, Mateo photographing them for their digital catalogue, and gotten them all sorted by the intended wearer, one of their few appointments was walking in the door.

"I heard you got some new clothes in to torture me with."

Kurt looked up from his laptop screen to see Elias standing in the doorway. "Some wonderful new things for you to wear, you mean," Kurt continued the familiar teasing as he waved him inside.

He wished that he was the one holding the camera to snap a picture of the way Mateo's eyes widened as the actor playing his favorite character walked in the door.

"Eli! You won't believe what we've got for you today." Ali smiled brightly over at him. "It's going to be a fun day. Swear to God." She wrapped an arm around Mateo's shoulders, seemingly oblivious to his dropped jaw. "We've got a new photographer for the day. This is Mateo, Kurt's new kid."

Kurt sniffed playfully. "And I promise that I do not ever put you in anything I wouldn't have worn in high school."

"I'm still waiting on those pictures," Elias said as he walked over to the rack with Conrad's name taped to the end. He gave it one quick skim before he offered an hand down to Mateo. "Elias Brisbane. Nice to meet you. Mateo, was it?"

Mateo took his hand as he squeaked out a hello.

Kurt gave Mateo a quick amused look before it was time to get back to business. "Let's start with this." He pulled a pair of pants and a long sweater off the rack, passing them over to Elias.

Elias saluted him playfully before he disappeared into the curtained changing area set into the corner of the room.

Kurt took that as a chance to kneel down in front of Mateo and pull him into a tight hug. "Breathe, okay? You've got this, kid." He waited until he felt Mateo's nod against his shoulder before he pulled back. "Just think of the story you'll have to tell the first day of school," Kurt whispered.

Mateo laughed at that, the tense pose he'd frozen into relaxing.

"Ooh? Someone's a fan?" Ali teased, loudly enough that it got a chuckle from behind the curtain. Mateo glanced over, eyes wide again for a moment before Ali hung the camera back around his neck. "We'll need photographs of each outfit. You ready?."

Elias stepped out in the potential costume, giving the deep vee of the sweater's neckline a tug up. "Is this supposed to be this low?"

Kurt slipped into work mode, shifting the garment, pinning where necessary. Trying the sweater over a tank and then a button down to decide what he liked. Mateo kept up with them, snapping pictures whenever he or Ali requested it.

Kurt checked the first set of pictures over carefully, afraid to find them blurry or otherwise unusable. Once he'd established Mateo's ability, his gaze shifted to his son himself. Elias was one of the most personable of the actors, and he joked around with Mateo so naturally that Kurt had to wonder if he had a kid brother. The combination of a job to do and Elias's personality helped Mateo quickly get over being star struck.

At that point, Kurt couldn't help but note that he seemed more comfortable around Elias than he had around any other guy they'd introduced him to. He made a mental note to talk about it later with Blaine. Was it Elias' relatively young age or his status as an actor on Mateo's favorite show?

"Should I pose for this one?" Elias joked, striking an exaggerated pose that would be ridiculous for any actual fashion model.

Mateo giggled even as he shook his head. "I think you're supposed to stand normal. Like it would look on set."

Elias dropped the pose, smoothing his hands along the tight pair of red and black plaid pants he was wearing. "Well, we are talking about Conrad. Maybe I could talk the directors into it." He let Mateo get the picture and then turned around to glance at himself in the mirror. "I could go with more outfits like this, Kurt. Not like everyone else, but not quite so loud."

Kurt hmmed noncommittally. He turned to a rack of accessories, flipping through a few different choices before he grabbed a red tie. "Still needs something." He stepped into Elias' space to flip up the collar of the black short sleeved button down to thread a plain red tie around it. He tied it expertly then tugged it loose. "There. Mateo, another picture, please?"

"Can I see?" Elias asked after it was taken. Mateo turned the camera around with a silent smile. "You're a good photographer, my man."

"Thanks," Mateo said quietly.

Kurt gave his son a quick squeeze as he stepped in to look. "We might have to see about finding you a photography class."

Mateo beamed at the praise, and by the time Elias was changing out of the last outfit and back into a faded Iron Man tee and jeans with a ripped knee, Kurt was pretty sure that Mateo's smile might be permanent.

"Up for one last picture?" Kurt asked Elias with a nod toward Mateo.

"Of course!" Elias dropped down to one knee, gesturing Mateo closer. "Pass the camera over and come here, little man. Only fair that you get to step in front of it at least once."

Kurt made sure to get a good shot, before he sent Mateo with the camera over to Ali to get all the photos uploaded into their system. "Thank you so much for being so kind," Kurt said quietly as he walked Elias over the door. "He's usually pretty shy, but he's a big fan. I think you just made his life."

Elias laughed, brushing it off with a wave of his hand. "He's a cool kid. Definitely more fun talking to him than it will be heading back to my trailer to memorize the changes to this afternoon's scene."

"He even took a picture with me," Mateo said with a dreamy sigh as he told the whole story to Blaine in line at Chipotle. "Do you have it on your phone, Papa?"

Kurt's eyes caught on Blaine's, as he fumbled for it in his pocket. He'd never heard Mateo call him that. They'd decided from the start to let the kids call them Kurt and Blaine as long as it made them more comfortable. Camila'd switched over to Daddy and Papa pretty quickly, but Mateo hadn't. Kurt didn't want to make his son feel awkward by calling attention to it, but he was pretty sure his smile was just as big as Mateo's as he passed the phone over. "I do indeed."


	8. Chapter 8

"I'm so glad you were free today." Kurt ushered Miguel through the front door with a wave of his hand. "Blaine just went to go tell Mateo to get his shoes on."

"I'd been hoping for the chance to spend some more time with Mateo before he starts back to school," Miguel said with a relaxed smile on his face. "How's he been doing?"

"Pretty well, I think. He's certainly proven willing to make his opinion known when he and Jules disagree." Kurt shook his head. "A little too well, maybe."

Miguel laughed at Kurt's expression. "Ah, brothers. Did you two end up finding a therapist for him?"

"We did. His first appointment is Friday." Kurt turned at the sound of footsteps on the stairs to see Blaine.

"He hadn't brushed his teeth yet, so I shipped him off to the bathroom to take care of that." Blaine offered his hand out to Miguel with a quick smile. "I'm glad this all worked out. I love my brother, but he can be a bit, uh, much. I think it'll be easier on Mateo for them to meet later in the visit when Coop's had a chance to wear himself out a bit."

"You sound like you're talking about a puppy and not your forties-ish brother." Kurt gave his head another shake before he explained to Miguel. "Cooper is Jules' biological father, which is a long story, but we always try to get him to spend some times with Jules when he's in town."

Miguel nodded slowly, taking in that whole explanation.

Mateo's lighter footsteps padded down the stairs. Blaine caught him at the bottom of the stairs with a quick hug, giving his breath a playful sniff. "Now you're minty fresh and ready for the day."

Mateo rolled his eyes at that before he gave Miguel a shy smile. "Hi."

"Morning, Mateo." Miguel returned the smile with a broad one of his own. "I thought maybe we'd catch an early showing of the new Pixar movie and then get hamburgers and talk about life. Sound good?" At Mateo's nod of agreement with the plan, he turned to give Kurt and Blaine a quick wave. "You've got my number, right?"

Kurt nodded in confirmation. "Have a great day."

Miguel led Mateo back out the front door, engaging him in easy conversation as they went, and Kurt let out a soft sigh of relief. Part one in their plan for a smooth Saturday had gone well. Miguel had been over enough during the summer to check in with Mateo that he was a trusted face. Kurt was pretty sure that their day together would go well.

Getting their plans for Cooper to run as smoothly? That was going to be a bigger challenge.

"Brother mine!" Cooper pulled Blaine into a bear hug as soon as he'd opened the door.

"Hello, Cooper." Blaine stepped back after a moment of getting squeezed. "How was Vancouver?"

"Good, good." Cooper kicked off his shoes, heading straight for the couch to take a seat. "I can't wait for you to see the movie. I had such a great part. My character got a name and everything."

"That's great, Coop." Blaine perched on the edge of a nearby armchair. "It sounds like a good part."

"And I've got a commercial booked to start filming next week. I'll be the new face of breakfast cereal." Cooper made it sound like that was the best news ever.

Blaine just nodded. He'd long ago learned better than to try to point out to his brother that it was just a commercial. At least commercials meant Cooper would keep bringing in money to support himself. "So, Kurt and I thought maybe we could all have lunch together and then you might want to spend the afternoon doing something special with Julian. We've got passes for a laser tag place up the road if you want them. It's one of Julian's favorite special outings."

"Laser tag? That sounds like an awesome time." Cooper flashed a broad smile at Blaine before he glanced around as if suddenly realizing something was missing. "Where are the kids, anyway? You've got three of them now, right?"

"We do. Mateo's out with his…" Blaine paused, searching for a Cooper friendly term for what Miguel was, "mentor. Julian and Camila are upstairs. I think they're taking advantage of their Saturday video game time, if you want to go join them while Kurt and I finish getting lunch ready."

Cooper hopped up. "Sounds great! I bet I can show them a move or two!"

"And then there was a unicorn with a long pink horn," Camila told Cooper very seriously. "He was really strong, and he came to save the day."

"You know that reminds me of a script I read once," Cooper told Camila.

As Cooper continued his story, Kurt leaned in closer to Blaine to whisper to his husband. "Should we be worried that Cooper and Camila are getting along so well?"

"For Camila? Or because it shows Cooper is best suited to talking to six year olds?" Blaine whispered back teasingly. He let the give and take of stories go on a little longer before he broke in, trying to shift focus to take the glazed look out of Julian's eyes.. "Make sure you eat all your green beans, Camila. Julian, I've been meaning to ask, do you want to play baseball this fall, or should we find you a soccer team again?"

"Baseball," Julian answered without needing any time to think about the question. "Definitely baseball. Soccer was fun, but I don't want to get out of practice."

"Maybe we can find some time next week for a trip to the batting cage," Kurt offered.

Blaine shot him a grin. It was amazing how having kids could make you say and do things you'd never expected. Who'd have expected those words to come out of Kurt's mouth voluntarily?

"Baseball, huh?" Cooper asked. "You any good? I had a role in a baseball movie once, but I only had two actual lines. It was a great movie though. It did really well at-"

An afternoon spent with just one child at home was quieter than Kurt remembered. He and Camila spent some time picking through a box of fabric odds and ends to choose the perfect combination for a new outfit for Rex, because her stuffed unicorn needed something to cover the spots where his fur was wearing thin.. Then Blaine took her out for a little one on one time and some ice cream. Kurt even had time to pull out his sewing machine and sew with zero interruptions.

In other words, it was really nice, even if occasional worries cropped up about how Mateo and Julian were doing on their respective outings.

Mateo arrived home shortly after Camila and Blaine came back. He'd had a smile on his face as he walked in the door, so Kurt didn't even have to ask how his time with Miguel had gone..

"Papa, do you have the picture we took with Elias? Can I show Miguel?" Mateo asked, his eyes doing the pleading as much as his voice.

It was a simple request, so Kurt was happy to be able to give in. He pulled the picture up on his phone and passed it over.

Mateo darted back to Miguel's side offering it out with what Kurt imagined was probably not the first recounting of the story.

When the story reached its end and Kurt got his phone back he pulled Mateo into a side hug. "I'm glad to see you had a good time. Take your shoes upstairs and then you can come back down and say goodbye to Miguel, alright?"

Mateo nodded. "Is Camila upstairs?" He didn't wait for an answer before he headed up to check on his sister and hopefully remember to put his shoes away.

"Someday he'll trust us to really parent her," Kurt quipped as he waved Miguel in out of the entry way. He'd bought a moment to talk to Miguel without little ears listening. "I take it your day together went well."

Miguel tucked his hands down into his pockets, rocking from the balls of his feet to his heels as he nodded. "It did. Mateo is actually comfortable talking to me, finally, which feels like a big victory." His smile spread wider. "And I think I heard at least three or four times about his trip into work with you, so obviously that went well. Although I think he might have more than a bit of a crush. You'd better be careful, or he'll find a way to get a poster sized print of that picture to plaster on his bedroom wall."

"Where's Cooper?" Blaine asked from the couch an hour or so later when Julian came back through the front door alone. The rest of the family had settled around the living room for what Blaine estimated was their millionth rewatch of Mulan.

"He said that he had a lines to run for a big audition Monday." Julian disappeared up the stairs without any word as to whether afternoon had been a good one.

Blaine was just about ready to start the silent communication with Kurt of which of them should go up and check on Julian when the boy was back, barefoot and in a clean t-shirt.

Li Shang had just started to make men out of his troops, and Camila was cheerfully singing along from her spot on Kurt's lap, so Blaine just scooted closer to the edge of the couch to make room and patted the space beside him in invitation.

Julian leaned in against Blaine, resting his head on his father's shoulder, so Blaine slipped an arm around his shoulders giving him a reassuring squeeze. His almost-a-middle-schooler son wanting to snuggle with either of his fathers was increasingly rare, and Blaine nodded quietly when he caught the worried look Kurt shot their way.. One of them would definitely need to find an opportunity to talk to Julian about whatever had happened with Cooper to make him so quiet.

There wasn't a good time to pull Julian aside until bedtime. That they needed to was increasingly clear in how abnormally quiet he was through dinner and the way he let Mateo choose a board game to play without a single comment. A quiet Mateo might be normal, but a quiet Julian was definitely worrying.

They let him stay up to watch an episode of one of his favorite shows as Blaine got Mateo and Camila tucked into bed, and Kurt heated up a pan of warm milk.

Neither of them said a word as they settled down beside Julian in the living room. Blaine took a seat on the sofa next to him, and Kurt settled in his favorite armchair. Julian took the offered mug of warm milk and curled back up against Blaine's side.

It only took two or three minutes for Julian to speak up. "I know what you're doing. I'm fine."

"Why wouldn't you be?" Kurt asked.

Julian just rolled his eyes at the question. "You made me warm milk. You only do that if you think there's something wrong. And you let me stay up late. I bet it was so you could talk to me by myself."

"You're a sixth grader, or will be in less than two weeks. Maybe we should make your bedtime later, as long as you promise to be really quiet on your way in and not wake Mateo." Blaine gave Kurt a quick look over Julian's head. How had their kid gotten so wise to their ways? They were going to have to think of new ploys. "How was your time with Uncle Cooper?"

"Fine. I really like laser tag." The details stopped there, and Julian's eyes fixed back on the TV screen. Blaine was about ready to either start trying to come up with prying questions or to silently beg Kurt to do it when Julian finally spoke back up. "Do you think I'm like Uncle Cooper?"

Blaine ran a hand through Julian's straight brown hair. "I think you look a lot like him."

"And there could be a lot worse people to look like," Kurt quickly added with a wry smile. "Why?"

"I mean, Uncle Cooper's actually my father, right? Like, you guys are my dads, but we talked in science last year about how you get half your gene stuff from each parent. So half of me would be from Uncle Cooper." For once, Julian didn't try to brush Blaine's hand away or fix his hair, instead he leaned into the touch, snuggling like he had when he'd been Camila's age.

"Cooper's your biological father, yes." Blaine chose his words carefully. "So half your DNA came from him and half from your mother."

Julian nodded slowly, staring down at the warm milk in his mug thoughtfully before he finally spoke up again. "So that means I'm half like Uncle Cooper?"

"You're all like Jules." Kurt said, leaning across the corner of the coffee table to rest a hand on Julian's knee. "Do you want to be like Uncle Cooper?"

"He's kind of full of himself." Julian looked up to meet Kurt's eyes. "Am I like that? I mean, do you think I only care about myself?"

"If you're asking that, I think the answer is no." Kurt gave Julian's knee a squeeze. "Everyone has times when they're thinking about themselves and what would be best for them. It'd be unhealthy not to. But Uncle Cooper's pretty good about going beyond that to make everything about him, isn't he?"

"Uncle Cooper and I are brothers. We share some of the same DNA, too. Do you think I'm like that?" Blaine asked.

Julian shook his head quickly. "No. You think about Papa and about Mateo, Camila, and me all the time. And you care about what we've been doing and want to listen to our stories, not just tell ones about you."

"Exactly. And I'd say the same thing about you." Blaine gave Julian a nudge with his shoulder. "I love Cooper, but he never really learned to think about what other people need instead of just worrying about himself. And you know what? In the end that's worked out pretty well for me, because that's one of the reasons Papa and I got you to raise. Uncle Cooper wasn't ready to make the sacrifices and changes in his life that raising a you was going to take. You shook things up for Papa and I, too, but in a way that's made our lives so much better."

Julian considered that quietly for a moment. "And Camila and Mateo?"

"It hasn't always been easy adding them into our family has it?" Kurt picked the thread of the conversation. "I know that you and Mateo fight sometimes, and you've had to share a lot of your things and your space."

"But in the end, Mateo's my brother, and Camila's my sister. It hasn't been the way I thought it was going to be, but it's worth it, right?" Julian tilted his head back to meet Blaine's eyes.

"It's worth it," Blaine echoed in reassurance. "Sometimes the things that shake up our lives the most also bless us the most, like you did. Like they did."

"Do you think this was God's plan?" Julian asked, eyes still on Blaine.

That was definitely Blaine's question to answer, and he took the time to pick just the right words. "I don't think that it's was God's plan for your mother to pass away or God's plan for Mateo and Camila to live through the kind of things they've had to. But this? All of us together? I think God's plan is always for us to love and for us to take care of each other."

Kurt shifted to Julian's other side, pulling his son into a hug. "I think that if you remember that, to love, to take care of others, and to let other people help you in return, you'll be a great big brother, and you'll grow up to be an amazing man who never needs to worry about being _too_ much like Uncle Cooper."

 **A/N:** **I'll be adding an epilogue next week, but otherwise, this is the end of the story. For now. I'm never going to rule out more shorts in this universe.**


	9. Epilogue

"Looks like your brain is full of thoughts." Burt sank down to sit next to Blaine on the courthouse bench.

"Isn't that what brains are supposed to be full of?" Blaine shot back before he patted the wooden bench under him. "I'd just realized that I sat in this exact same place almost eleven years ago now, to the day. The mixture of excitement and nerves I felt that day hasn't changed a bit, even if everything else in my life has."

"Julian was just a baby then." Burt's eyes caught on his three grandchildren, humoring Carole by posing for a photo together against a plaque bearing the name of the courthouse. "I remember that day well. Another January adoption day, not that I mind. It's a good excuse to come out here for your much nicer California January weather."

"National Adoption Month might be in November, but it seems like January is the month for us." Blaine watched the children thoughtfully as Carole kept them occupied. "You know, when I sat here eleven years ago, I thought of this as an ending. The whole adoption process was done. Julian was going to be officially mine. And it is that, but it's so much more the start of another chapter for our family."

Smiling for the camera was easy, Mateo thought. Not smiling for the camera would be the hard thing right now. He was pretty sure that this smile had started when the judge had tapped his gavel and declared them all a family and then invited them up for pictures.

It was easy now to admit to himself that he had been nervous, even though he'd lied and told Miguel that he wasn't when Miguel had asked. He'd been worried that some last shoe might drop, but it hadn't.

The judge had been nice, not like a scary one from TV. Miguel had said good things about Kurt and Blaine. He'd asked Mateo if he wanted to be adopted. As if there was going to be any answer to that other than yes.

And then he'd declared them all a family. Forever. Mateo was never going to have to move again, at least not until he was grown. He'd never have to worry about whether the next family would be nice or how they'd treat Camila. It was freeing.

There were family pictures with the judge, and then all the extra people there with them joined in for more pictures. By the time they were done, Mateo thought that the stars in his eyes might be as permanent as his smile.

He turned to find Blaine beside him and gave him a big hug. "Thanks for deciding you wanted Camila and I."

Blaine laughed, giving Mateo a tight squeeze. "Of course we want you. Papa and I are lucky to get to keep you and Camila forever."

Mateo giggled at that. "Well, maybe not forever. I might grow up and decide to get married."

"Even then, you'll be my boy. Even if you have babies of your own." Blaine grabbed Mateo's shoulders, turning him so that they had a good view of Burt giving Kurt a hug. "Just like that. No matter how old he gets, Papa is always Grandpa Burt's son, and you'll always be mine."

"I think this might be one of my favorite family traditions," Julian said as they waited their turn for a family photo in front of Cinderella's castle, bouncing on his toes with excited energy.

"Well, you'd better enjoy it. I'm sure there will be other Disneyland trips, but I expect this will be the last time we celebrate an adoption as a family." Kurt tilted his head back, enjoying the feel of the warm sun on his skin. "For a January day, we sure picked a beautiful one to do this."

"Does that mean we can go ride Splash Mountain?" Mateo asked pleadingly. Kurt had to laugh. This was Mateo and Camila's first visit to Disneyland, and they'd both poured over the map online beforehand trying to decide what they most wanted to do. Splash Mountain had been the top of Mateo's list, even though they'd warned him that it might be too cold for water rides in January.

"After the picture maybe we can split into two groups," Blaine suggested. "Grandma Carole and I can take Camila to see the princesses, and you two can go with Papa and Grandpa Burt to check out one of the other rides. I've heard the Matterhorn is really fun."

"But maybe not as much fun as Splash Mountain. We'd have to compare." Julian jumped in to defend his brother's choice as Kurt pushed them forward to start getting everyone into neat lines for their photo.

"You know, the first time we were here, Papa proposed to me right in this spot," Blaine said, avoiding that decision.

"And you were so shocked, I thought you were going to drop Julian." Kurt stepped back to make sure everyone was clearly visible before he passed over their camera to the photographer. "It's a good thing Aunt Miriam was there to catch him, or who knows what might have happened.

The photographer smiled at all of them, catching sight of their We're Celebrating buttons. "Welcome to Disneyland! What are you celebrating today?"

Camila beamed at the woman. "Our family! Mateo and I got adopted today! Now we get to be family for ever and ever."

"That is certainly worth celebrating."

 **A/N: Thank you for sticking with me through this one-shot turned into 25,000+ words. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'm sure these will not be the last words I ever write in this 'verse.**


End file.
